


Freeze Me

by orphan_account



Series: Snow On Barry [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: AU, Caitlin Snow is Killer Frost, Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, SnowBarry - Freeform, established snowbarry, flash frost, season 1 AU, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-07-19 19:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7374481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caitlin Snow and Barry Allen were enjoying their lives their recent engagement. Until the particle accelerator happened that is. AU/canon divergent from pre season 1</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning

Of course Caitlin woke up before Barry.

The alarm clock that the two shared, the one that told them when to wake up and go to their respective jobs, beeped its heart out, but as usual only Caitlin awoke.

Dr. Caitlin Snow spent the minutes she knew she has before Barry joined her in consciousness watching him breathe slowly in and out. She used her left hand to gently stroke his hair, and hoped her engagement ring didn't get caught on a strand.

Caitlin was worried that things would die down between them when Barry had proposed two months earlier. She had expected it, when a couple gets more domestic to the point of everlasting commitment, the passion dies down slowly over time to the point where they’re over glorified roommates who barely tolerate each other for the sake of the kids and both are just too afraid to leave the other because they just don’t know how to start the conversation and then she’ll probably start fantasizing about their daughter’s math teacher and start praying that Barry would catch some fatal illness…..

OK so maybe ‘worried’ was too small a word to describe the full terror Caitlin had felt, and still felt to some degree, that eventually her and Barry would become just like her parents. Unfortunately the only time Caitlin’s parents actually seemed to be affectionate with one another was when the news was delivered that Caitlin’s father was sick and that there was nothing they could do. Caitlin didn't want her and Barry to end up like that.

So far they hadn't and Caitlin was clinging to that. _It’s been two months and everything is fine._

Also unfortunately for her, she had to cut her Barry-gazing short because of the importance of the day Caitlin found herself waking up one.

The day that STAR Labs would activate the particle accelerator.

It was due to Caitlin’s job that she had met Barry, running into him when he had been listening in on Harrison Wells’ lecture at the convention they had gone to that Barry had shown up to hear Caitlin’s boss speak. She would be forever grateful to Cisco when he had freaked out about leaving a flash drive important to Wells’ presentation in the car and had run into Barry, spilling his coffee all over him. It was like something out of a movie. A stress filled oh-my-god-my-boss-is-so-firing-me-if-I-mess-this-up sort of movie that would never actually grace a Hollywood movie unless it was a comedy.

Everything was pretty much all set for the unveiling of the particle accelerator, but Caitlin was still needed at the lab to do some quick last minute tests and calculations to make sure everything was functioning within normal parameters.

She placed a few not-so-gentle kisses along Barry’s neck. Their bare skin slides against one another and Caitlin wondered if they could quickly give into a few more primal urges before leaving their apartment.

“Cait,” he groaned. “Five more minutes.”

She giggled at his childlike behavior. “No, mister, out of bed right now. Captain Singh will have your ass if you’re late to work.” She caressed his cheek in an effort to coax him awake. “And your ass is mine.”

He cracked an eye at her and the corner of his mouth went up. “So it is.” He threw the covers off of him and sluggishly got up. He headed into the adjoining bathroom and proceeded to brush his teeth.

Caitlin quickly pulled on her work clothes, and tried not to stare at her fiancee’s naked body, and reminded herself that she would just have to get her fill of Barry before she had to go on stage to unveil her life’s work.

After fully clothing themselves they found themselves eating their hastily made breakfasts in their small kitchen. While Barry still had about an hour until he was expected in or at least until he was called in to a crime scene, Caitlin and no such luck.

“Hey,” he said, pulling her in for a tender kiss. “You worked really hard for this, and I’m really proud of you.”

The excitement and nervousness she felt simmered under her skin as Barry warmed her, but her worries eased away in those few seconds in his arms.

“Thank you,” she whispered before giving him a quick peck, and then turning on her heels she marched out the door like a woman in love.

 

“OK!” Iris said as she practically bounced into Barry’s forensics lab. “I am ready to see this atom smasher…smashing.”

“There was a shooting today. Your dad needs me to process some evidence, which means I don’t think we can make it to STAR Labs.” Barry’s face showed his dismay and stark disappointment with the turn of events.

“This thing turning on is like your dream. Caitlin’s dream! You lovebirds and your shared sad little nerdy dream.” With no remorse she stole his french fry and ate it, and not even that could snap Barry out of his funk. “I get the feeling your lady love isn’t gonna like you not being there anymore than you would. Not to mention I cancelled a date for this. I better be getting points with my future sister-in-law.”

“Hands off my fries!” He scolded, finally seeming to care about the state of his lunch. “Unbelievable.”

“I’m sorry, I’m stress eating over my dissertation. We started selling cronuts at Jitters. I ate two today. If I don’t graduate I’m gonna be more muffin top than woman.”

“You look amazing,” Barry said to his adopted sister.

“So what’s so important about this particle accelerator anyway? Besides that you’re sleeping with one of the head scientists.”

Barry playfully rolled his eyes. “I’m making her an honest woman, so you can’t make our relationship sound sneezy anymore.”

Iris cocked her head. “I still wonder if you’re not dating her to get to your childhood nerd hero.”

“After meeting the guy I think ‘never meet your heroes’ is something everyone should listen to.”

Before Iris could make some sort of witty remark, Barry launched into a passionate explanation on why the particle accelerator was so important to science as a whole, why it could very well go down in the history books as the single greatest achievement in their lifetime.

After trying and failing to latch onto his enthusiasm, Iris placed her hands on her brother’s shoulders to stop him. “Caitlin is really rubbing off on you.”

“Leave him alone, he’s doing work,” Joe said, somehow sneaking up on both of them.

“Hi Dad,” A loud beep came from Barry’s computer and they all turned to the sound. “Your test thingy is done.”

Barry marched to his computer and the father and daughter followed him. Barry then shared his conclusions with Joe, that the Martin brothers were most likely hiding out on a farm due to the excrement Barry had found at the crime scene earlier that day.

Iris hated seeing Barry in distress, and jumped at the opportunity to turn his frown upside down. “Seeing as how Barry solved your poop problem, how about letting him go to STAR Labs. It’s Caitlin’s, and apparently the world’s, big night.”

Joe’s poker face held up for another moment before cracking into a smile. “Fine. Go, and tell your girl to get herself to my house for family dinner next week. With all her late nights I’m starting to miss her.”

Barry’s excitement was contagious as Iris giggled as she followed him out the door of his lab, he threw one last reply that he would pass on the message before leaving.

 

What was she supposed to do with her hands? She was standing there, right in the background of the whole stage, smiling like an idiot. Was she supposed to keep them in front of her? Strictly at her sides? Behind her?

After deciding to keep them in front of her, fiddling with her engagement ring as the great Harrison Wells himself stepped up to the podium. She didn’t search the crowd for Barry, a little fearful she’d meet the eyes of a stranger and enter some weird eye showdown and loose her cool when there were about a dozen cameras on her. She just really hoped her nervousness wasn’t making her sweat, and was grateful for the humid yet cool temperatures.

Her boss started speaking about the hope of what the particle accelerator would bring and the benefits to humanity, but in order to not completely freak out over the importance of what was about to happen, she tuned him out and just smiled and nodded, and wondered if Barry was enjoying the speech.

 

The mugger hit Barry in the face with Iris’ laptop.

Barry groaned as he dropped to the hard cement ground and tried to talk down the guy. “Hey kid, you don’t have to do this, alright? Just give me my friend’s bag and we’ll call it even. OK?”

Why was he surprised when the mugger hit him again with the laptop?

He keeled over from the force of the blow as Iris ran over to him. “Barry! Are you OK?”

After sorting himself Iris and him ran to where the mugger had ran off, still hoping to get Iris’ dissertation.

Luckily for them, the new detective at the CCPD caught the guy and was given all the credit for the work. Not that Barry was bitter about it, or jealous. OK maybe a little, but would it kill anyone to just say, “thanks for slowing the guy down”?

Barry left Iris in the capable hands of Eddie Thawne, seeing as how Iris wouldn't stop flirting with the ‘dreamy’ detective, only to discover he couldn’t get back to the event and see them start the particle accelerator.

If he hurried back to his lab, he could still see it on his computer. With a shrug to his shoulder and whistling to signal a taxi, he figured watching the news coverage live wouldn't be the worst thing.

 

“Ladies and gentleman, we’ve done it,” Harrison Wells said as he popped the champagne bottle. All the scientists in the room clapped and Caitlin felt like she was in a dream.

“I’m still ordering pizza for the victory party,” Ronnie whispered to her, and Caitlin rolled her eyes playfully.

Like some dreams, it became a nightmare.

The champagne floated out of the bottle, and Wells’ face instantly grinned.

_That’s not supposed to happen, right?_

Everyone in the room stared in confusion, and the moment the champagne succumbed to gravity the alarm bells rang.

Everyone sprang into action, and soon the main four scientists were surrounding Cisco as he worked quickly on his computer.

“There’s an anomaly in the core chamber,” Cisco informed.

Everyone’s voices were calm and serious, but on the inside Caitlin’s heart was thumping out of her chest to the point of nearly passing out. All she had to do was solve this one thing and she could do just that, not a moment sooner. Until then she had to deal with the unbearable heat that had suddenly surrounded her.

“The ring structure is holding,” Caitlin said. That was good, if the structure was still stable, then all they had to do was neutralize the anomaly before it contaminated the rest of the accelerator.

“The system is collapsing. We need to shut it down.” Wells gave no room for arguments and everyone’s minds raced with solutions.

“We can’t ramp down the accelerator from here, you need to do it manually,” Cisco said, about to take off like a bullet.

“Go!”

“But we also need the ice star coolant from the basement freezer. It will slow the accelerator down and buy us more time.”

“I’ll get it.”

“Ronnie, no!” Caitlin interjected. “You’re the only one who knows how to shut down the valve. You don’t even know what the ice star looks like or how to handle it. I’ll get the coolant and meet you in the pipeline.” She didn’t realize she had volunteered until after Ronnie and Cisco had run off and Wells had summoned another person to take her place.

If they had more time, they probably would’ve fought or even second guessed their arrangement, but the adrenaline and heat coursing through her veins didn’t give Caitlin a lot of time to consider what she was doing. Her heels weren’t good for running down flights of stairs, but Caitlin managed to make it to the basement that they jokingly called their ‘morgue’ without even stumbling.

Standard procedure mandated that all STAR Labs employees were to wear heavy coats and gloves before entering the freezer due to the extreme temperature, but she just didn’t have that time.  
She needed to hurry fast and get the coolant to Cisco and Ronnie before the place blew up.

She fleetingly thought of her fiancee Barry, wondered where he was and if he was worried for her, heck, Caitlin was worried for herself too. There was a real chance Caitlin would never even set a date for her wedding.

Pushing that thought away immediately she rushed inside the blizzard that made up the freezer, the cold like a balm to Caitlin’s burning skin suddenly biting into her flesh and quickly sinking into her bones. The only thing keeping her going at that point was the pure adrenaline that her brain must’ve been drowning in.

She placed her hands on the crate that was mostly frost and lifted the lid, thanking her lucky stars that the crate wasn't bolted. Caitlin then realized her mistake, she wasn’t wearing gloves and could get frostbite from the exposure of the ice star. Calculations started going in her head on body type ratios and blood flow in relation to how long before she might have to get her hand amputated-

She snapped out of it. Her hand or the countless lives of innocent people? Easy choice that she made in the blink of an eye. She grabbed the star with her right hand and pulled it out of the container. She screamed at the cold, but she had to keep going. Everyone was depending on her to buy them time, and she couldn't afford to be a wimp right then.

The star felt like it was burning her and Caitlin couldn't remember when she had ever felt such agony, or if she would ever feel warm again. She got ready to sprint out of the freezer, but then the worst happened.

Cisco and Ronnie had managed to minimize the meltdown, but not stop it altogether, dark matter flew from the pipeline, and exploded.

Caitlin, still in the freezer clutching the ice star, froze cold.

A few miles away, a Barry Allen was struck by lightning and burned hot.


	2. Waking Up Is Hard To Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry Allen wakes up from a nine month long coma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! Here is the newest update and I hope it is to everyone's liking. I started writing this story when I couldn't sleep and I didn't even really go over it before I published it 2hrs after I broke out a clean document on my laptop and I am really happy that the story that I wrote while partially delirious is gaining such momentum. This one is for you guys!

In Barry's endless fog, he heard a wonderful song. A voice that brought him out of the darkness. It was the voice of his savior.

It was Lady Gaga; Mama Monster herself.

His eyes popped out of his head and his pulse monitor went berserk. The wires attached to most of his upper torso pulled at him as he shot up like a rocket.

"Oh my!" A voice yelled.

"Where am I?" Barry mumbled, the lights in the room too bright for his sensitive eyes to make out any clear shapes. He heard fumbling and eventually a click.

"Dr. Wells you need to come down to the cortex right now." Dr. Wells? Was he at STAR Labs?

Barry started pulling at the wires grappling his skin in an effort to ease the sudden phobia of being attached to a bunch of strange wires. What was he doing at STAR Labs? Cait wasn't using him as a guinea pig, was she?

The blurry figure put his hands on Barry's shoulders. "Whoa man, relax. You're at STAR Labs."

His vision cleared right then, but even so he would've recognized that voice anywhere. "Cisco? What am I doing here?" Please tell him that he and Cait hadn't started a drinking game at STAR Labs again, some of the stuff he said while drunk were things that he could possibly never live down.

"Wait hold on," he said, pulling a penlight from behind him and started shining it in Barry's eyes. "Pupils reacting and doing that getting smaller….thing."

Barry moved away from Cisco's grasp and moved off the bed. "Wait! What's happening? What's going on?"

Cisco looked disappointingly at the penlight for a moment before answering. "You were struck by lightning, dude."

Barry turned away from Cisco, and stopped before running into a mirror. There must be something stuck in his ears, or he's hallucinating or something because there was no way-

Wait a minute…. "Lightning gave me abs?" That certainly wasn't there last time he checked, or rather, when Caitlin had checked when she had kissed her way down his chest and- now was not the best time to reminisce.

Cisco scratched his head. "Yeah I don't know about that either. From how long you were out you should be just a lump of fat and bones, maybe not even bones so much, but like, the opposite kinda happened, I guess. I didn't go to medical school." Cisco reached into his back pocket and pulled out a licorice whip and proceeded to chew on it. He used his remaining hand to lower Barry back down to the bed. "Listen. You were in a coma."

"How long?" It couldn't have been too long, Cisco looked the same as he had when him and Caitlin had gone out to dinner with him a few weeks before the particle accelerator.

"Nine months," Harrison Wells said as he walked in the room. Except he didn't walk into the room, he rolled in. On his wheelchair. "Welcome back, Mr. Allen. We have a lot to discuss."

"Dr. Wells? Where's Caitlin? Is she around?" Barry asked. He was at her workplace, she had to be around here somewhere.

Dr. Wells flinched. "I don't know how to tell you this Mr. Allen, but the night of the particle accelerator, your fiancé, Dr. Snow, died along with seventeen other people."

Six seconds. It took Barry six seconds to understand what Harrison Wells had said.

"No." He shook his head as a blender mixed up his thoughts. "That isn't right."

Wells had to be wrong. Barry remembered the morning he last saw Caitlin, all flirty smiles and tasting like granola. She couldn't just be gone, right?

Cisco put a hand on Barry's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Barry, but she's gone. I identified her body myself."

Barry pressed his shaking hand to his mouth to hold in an unexpected sob.

"I'm very sorry for your loss, Mr. Allen. I was hoping to have a few words with you regarding that night, but it looks like it will have to wait for another time. Dr. Snow was a very productive employee. It's a shame she won't be able to contribute to her field anymore." Without another word, Dr. Wells sped off.

Barry's eyes stung with tears that just wouldn't form in his eyes, and squeezed them tight.

Cait wasn't -hadn't- just been a scientist. She had been a lot of things, and reducing her to just an employ didn't help his breaking heart.

Cisco rubbed his back for a few minutes, his very being exuding the months of loneliness and guilt he had suffered through, mostly with the loss of his three closest friends, two to death and one to a long term coma.

No matter how much it stung that the news of Caitlin's death was delivered rather emotionlessly, as if she hadn't spent five years working for him, he was thankful Cisco and Wells agreed not to tell Joe and Iris he was awake so he could have a day to grieve.

Barry didn't want time to grieve, he wanted Cait.

* * *

 

 

The second Iris crushed him to her, he almost regretted spending a day avoiding her.

Iris always had a strange way of calming him down, her warm familial touch always seemed to have that effect on him. The only other person who could do that to him was Nora Allen. Iris' hugs made all the difference when he first came to live with her and her father.

In Iris' arms he felt like he was eleven all over again. Except he was twenty six and his fiancee was dead.

Cait, the same young woman who couldn't sing to save her life, was dead.

Cait, who was an early riser by necessity rather than by choice, was dead.

Cait, the woman who he was going to pledge to cherish for the rest of his life, wasn't coming back to say her own vows.

He pushed that thought out of his head when Iris' hug ended far too soon. Barry pasted a grin on his face. He was genuinely happy to see his sister. For him it had been a day, but for her it had been most of the year, and with Iris' gentle gasps and bright smile, all those months seemed to melt away for her.

"You're awake!" she said, trying to keep her excitement in check as she was still at work. "Why didn't STAR Labs call us?"

His smile wore out when he was reminded of the restless night he had drowning in his own memories. "I asked them not to."

Iris' smile faded just as quickly. "What? Why not? You didn't want to see us?"

"No!" he said, quick to correct her. He never liked causing Iris pain, not after everything she had done for him over the years, and he wouldn't let her think he didn't

want to see her. "I just needed some time."

"Oh." Iris nodded, suddenly remembering the lack of a certain auburn haired beauty by his side. "Right." She shook her hand and then a thought hit. "Wait, should you be on your feet?"

"Iris." Barry smiled, even though his eyes burned he let out a laugh to reassure her. "I'm OK. I'm gonna be OK."

Iris took a long look at him, remembering how she hadn't been OK. "I watched you die. Your heart kept stopping-,"

Barry took her hand and placed it on his chest. "Feel it, it's still beating."

"It's also really fast."

The waitress behind Iris tripped and dropped her tray on the ground, breaking a few cups.

Except that's not all that happened.

The waitress was in slow motion, her foot got caught on the edge of a counter, strands from her up-do flying around her and her face slowly showing her surprise at her situation.

The cups floated down to the floor like feathers and shattered on impact.

"Are you OK, Tracy?" Iris asked her coworker.

What had just happened? He blinked. Was there something wrong with his eyes? Looking back on it, maybe he should've let Cisco, with his medical incompetence and all, look him over after waking up from a coma and being struck by lightning.

Iris gripped his coat in her hands, still in disbelief that her oldest friend was alright and right in front of her. "Dad's going to be so happy to hear from you. I'm gonna get my stuff, I'll be right back."

That thing with the clumsy waitress must've been some sort of fluke, a waking dream maybe? Cait probably could explain-

Barry shook his head. Now wasn't the time or place. Now he was going to see Joe.

* * *

 

 

"You scared the hell out of me, kid." Joe said as he slapped his kid on the back.

"Yep, that was quite the nap you took there, baby face, and you still look twelve," a cop said as he walked by the family.

"You look OK. Are you really?" Leave it to Det. West to see through Barry so easily. He wasn't Barry's second dad for no reason

"I will be. Eventually," he said honestly. Barry hoped this wouldn't be a bonding thing between them. Joe's dead wife and Barry's dead fiancee. What a terrible thing to have in common.

"Detective West," a police officer said as she went up to him. "We have a 5-50 in progress at the Gold City Bank. Two dead. Storm's really picking up on the south side, I'd grab your rain gear."

"I'm sorry, Bar, I gotta run." The concerned father was replaced by the detective as he ran for his coat.

"Do you need my help?" Barry asked, it was his job after all to examine crime scenes.

"No, you take it easy." He pointed his finger at him in emphasis. "There will be plenty for you to do once you settle in. Let's go partner!" Joe yelled over his shoulder.

"Hey Allen, glad to see you," Eddie Thawne said, shrugging on his coat. Barry felt a twinge of annoyance when he saw the man from the first and last time he had seen him. Barry hoped Officer Pretty Boy had enough brains to stay away from Barry's sister.

But since Barry really didn't want to make an enemy on his second day of consciousness and Barry thought maybe Eddie was actually an alright guy after all, Barry gave him a smile. "Thanks, Eddie."

Eddie Thawne gave a dopey smile when he set his eyes to Barry's right. "Hey Iris."

"Detective," she said formally, not meeting his gaze. "You should go, my dad doesn't like to be kept waiting."

Eddie looked like he wanted to say something, but instead turned to Barry. "I'm glad you're back." He gave Barry a gentle hand on the shoulder before rushing past him.

Barry watched Eddie leave, but a glass case caught his eye.

It was a memorial to Det. Chyre, Joe's partner, or rather, late partner.

Iris saw what caught his attention and joined him. She explained that Chyre had been shot and killed by Clive Martin the night of the particle accelerator and that the Martin brothers had died trying to escape. Barry felt a bit of sadness for the guy who had always been nice to him whenever they crossed paths. Chyre was the third person that had died that night that Barry had known after Cait and Ronnie. He almost shuddered to think that there could be a fourth person.

Iris was called away and an officer booking a perp quickly yelled out that it was good to see him, to which he replied with a nod.

It happened again. Like at Jitters with the waitress. The perp that the officer had been booking had his eyes glued to the second officer's gun, and Barry saw him reach for it.

Barry ran to the perp, trying to tackle him before he could get a shot, he was vaguely aware of his surroundings and how they seemed to freeze. He pushed the perp into the table and then once Barry realized that the people around him weren't moving he ran back to where he was standing before.

Suddenly the world started up again. The perp hit the table and yelled at the officers before they took him away. What the hell was that? In one second he had been standing right there, pushed the would be gunman, and then ran back. That wasn't possible.

"Barry, are you alright?" Iris inquired.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he breathed out, knowing that he didn't look, feel, or even was fine. "I just, I just need some air. I'll call you later, alright?" He didn't wait for her response before dashing away.

There was a humming under his skin, making it hard to walk evenly; he was thankful when he made it outside. The electricity in him centered itself in his hand, and he lifted his hand to find it vibrating, the edges of his hand blurring with how fast it was going.

"What's happening to me?" he mumbled, his hand vibrating harder than a smartphone.

The feeling of electricity spread through his whole body, and in less than a blink he was ten feet away, the wind blowing through his hair. He breathed harder. What was happening?

He looked behind him to the police cruiser and thought of running to it. Without thinking he moved and found himself covered in broken glass from the cruiser while face planted on the trunk.

He quickly got off it, trying to understand what was going on, even a little bit. He backed up further away from the police station into the alley.

He looked behind him at the open space. If he really was going as fast as he thought he could then-

He shot off like a rocket. The world around him blurred and it almost felt like he was flying, barely able to feel the ground beneath him.

Wait. How was he supposed to stop? There was an open van up ahead-

At least his landing was softened by the bags.

A confused man peeped his head into the van and pulled a few bags off him.

For the first time since he woke up, since he heard about what happened to Cait, Barry felt exhilarated. He smiled like a kid watching fireworks, in total amazement. "Awesome."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can check my progress on this fic or ask for spoilers (that I may or may not give) on Tumblr @snowonbarry
> 
> If you want me to answer your comments, write "please reply" at the end


	3. Sleeping, Impossible Too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This chapter is longer than the others, and this is the length of chapter I will probably write in future chapters. Reviews are my candy and I absolutely love hearing what you guys like/don't like from this story so it just gets better and better for my readers!

The first thing Barry did after getting out of the van was call Cisco to tell him about his apparent newfound abilities. In Barry’s opinion, Cisco believed him a little too easily. He was told to meet him and Dr. Wells outside of town tomorrow to test Barry’s claim.

Barry didn’t want to go into another coma, so he safely took the bus home. To his apartment.

The exhilaration and adrenaline wore off as he realized that he didn’t even know if he could call the apartment his anymore, he forgot to ask Iris and Joe if they had kept it for him or not during his coma.

The complex looked the same as ever when he walked up to it. The first time he walked in the building was with Cait and the people before them who had lived there. It wasn’t perfect and it was a little farther from their workplaces than they had wanted, but it was just right for them.

After getting buzzed in by a confused neighbor and explaining that _No Mrs. Jones he didn’t move away_ he went up to his floor, his heart racing with every second.

He could’ve used his new speed to get up the stairs faster than ever before, but he wanted to get to the fourth floor like he always did. Wanted to feel like it was a normal day for a few moments.

The hallway looked the same minus the bikes in front of his neighbor’s door. It was humbling how he was essentially nonexistent in the world for such a long time and almost nothing had changed. He found his door. 4E, right where it was before. He heard the heels clicking on the floor before he saw her.

“I wondered when you were gonna come back here.” Iris West came out of the shadows with her arms around herself.

“Iris, what are you doing here?”

Iris looked at him a little exasperatedly. “No, I haven’t been here long, thanks for asking. It occurred to me that Dad’s isn’t home to you anymore and that you don’t have a key.”

Barry almost face palmed. He didn’t think of keys, it had never occurred to him that he wouldn’t be able to even get the door open. Iris handed him the key and stepped back. Barry let the familiar feel of it in his hand until he remembered that Iris was there and waiting for him to do something. He sighed and unlocked the door, and rested his hand on the knob.

“I hope you don’t mind, but after you were in a coma for a week, I came by and picked up a bit.”

“Thanks, Iris,” he mumbled, appreciating the gesture but hating that anything had been disturbed. He spent another moment staring at the door before he gained the courage to open it. As he stepped over the threshold he waited for that wave of calm to descend on him, that clean scent of their home to wrap itself around him, but as he stepped into the apartment all he could think was one thing.

It was completely wrong.

Cait would have her work scattered on the kitchen table no matter how many times he would complain about the unnecessary clutter. He would have his shoes by the door after kicking them off in his hurry to start dinner so it would be ready by the time she would come home. A pile of laundry should be on the sofa where they would take turns folding while watching the news together. There should be plants by the windowsill, partially drowning because of how eager he was to watch them grow as she would tease him about being a mother hen to a tomato plant.

There were no scattered papers on the kitchen table, the shoes were neatly tucked away in the coat closet that was firmly shut, there were no evenly distributed piles of laundry and the tomato plants were nowhere in sight.

It wasn’t just wrong, it was lifeless.

The little touches of them were gone.

And so were the pictures.

Barry blinked. There should be pictures, on the walls and on the end table, but they weren't there. Framed pictures of Iris, Joe, Cisco, Caitlin and Barry were always dotted in seemingly random spots on the walls. Barry and Iris when they were kids at the zoo. Barry, Joe and Iris at graduation. Caitlin, Iris and Barry on his 22nd birthday. They were all gone.

“Where are the pictures?” he asked, suddenly remembering that Iris was there too.

“Barry, will you be honest with me if I ask you something personal?”

He nodded, doing anything to get her to talk. “Yeah, go ahead.” If he were more his usual self, he would’ve been more worried about _how_ personal she was asking. Then again, he wasn't his usual self.

Iris pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat down before addressing him. “Did you and Caitlin have a fight?”

“A fight?” He quickly wracked his brains around, trying to remember any sort of disagreement, but none turned up. “No. Everything was fine with us. Why?”

Iris’ knee started bouncing, nervous energy building in her. “When I got here, all the frames were cracked and the pictures had water damage. Some damage on the walls too.”

“What?”

“Barry it’s OK if you guys got a little heated and had a fight. Caitlin was stressed, and I knew you were stressed about her being stressed and that doesn’t mean she didn’t know you loved her-,”

“Iris!” he yelled to stop her rambling. “So you walked in and saw what you assumed was the aftermath of a fight?”

Iris scratched the back of her and ducked her eyes. “Yeah.”

When he had left his apartment that last day to go see the particle accelerator, the place was completely intact and Caitlin had been at STAR Labs all day. No time for an impromptu water balloon fight.

“Iris, we didn’t have a fight nor did we have time for one.”

Iris blinked. “But then how-,”

“The particle accelerator?” Iris clenched her eyes shut, feeling a little embarrassed that she jumped to conclusions without proper evidence, the exact opposite of what a reporter should do. “No one really knows what happened that night. The ones that could are dead.” Iris flinched at Barry’s cold words.

Iris then realized that while she had almost a year to mourn her friend and her (not anymore) future sister-in-law, Barry he’d had no time at all.

Iris got up from her seat and went up to Barry. His eyes were red, more red than when he had gone to see her earlier that day. His eyes were shining with tears he didn’t want to shed in front of her, but she’d seen him do this before, she wouldn’t let it happen again.

Iris’ voice was thick with her tears. “Sometimes I have a really good day, and I pick up the phone to text Caitlin, and then I remember that she will never answer. Or I find myself telling a cab driver your address, but then I remember that you wouldn’t be here.”  
Barry flinched, but said nothing.

Iris took Barry’s hand. “I know all this is so hard for you, waking up and everything is so different, but you beat the odds and survived!” Iris said, gasping out the last word. She put her arms around him loosely. “Caitlin would’ve been so impressed.”

Iris’ hugs could fix a lot of things, but not Barry’s broken heart.

“Goodnight, Barry.”

Like Caitlin, Iris had to leave the apartment too. Unlike Caitlin, Iris would come back.

* * *

It wasn’t until he was pulling the covers back on his bed that it really hit him.

He was sleeping alone.

Not counting his nine month snooze, Barry hadn’t slept alone since he was 23 before Caitlin and him had found an apartment together.

Cait had liked to cuddle, liked to burrow her head into his chest and hum in contentment, her fingers rubbing at exposed patches of Barry’s skin. It was his favorite thing to feel before he fell asleep.

Barry smiled, but it was weak, a stream of happy memories went through him. That first meeting, that first date, that first kiss. For a few moments he kept up the illusion of Caitlin about to jump into bed with him any moment, but all he had to do was listen to the crippling silence and feel the musty air to remember. Once that realization crept in all their lasts began playing. That last date a month before the particle accelerator, that last kiss in their kitchen before parting, the last time he saw her, beaming with pride at STAR Labs looking like she belonged there.

The last time he saw Caitlin wasn’t actually that special. He always figured that they would die of old age after a lifetime of memories the other person would live off of. Heck, even people in movies got to have an epic goodbye, a monologue on how they didn't regret a thing, but they had nothing. A few quick glimpses before Barry went to chase a mugger.

Barry couldn’t stop the depressing turn his thoughts were taking. He didn’t want to be a sad person, but he couldn't stop the feeling of drowning in his own emotions.

What an awful coincidence that the first time they saw each other would've been insignificant if it weren't for what happened after, and the last time they saw each other would’ve been a memory to escape him completely if it weren't for that it was his last memory of her. On the platform trying not to nervously twist her engagement ring.

Where was that ring now? Buried in the-

Wait. What had happened to Cait’s body?

Questions kept him up that night, tormenting him with his lack of answers. He tried to push them all away, hoping to get a wink of sleep by telling himself he could ask Cisco in the morning, until he finally succeeded.

* * *

“Do you think Barry has like, super powers?” Cisco enthusiastically wondered.

Dr. Wells looked up from his wheelchair, delight seeming to emanate from him. “I believe anything is possible, Mr. Roman, and I believe Barry is going to prove that to us.”

The trailer door opened, and Cisco went by to ask Barry how his suit fit.

To say that Barry wasn’t loving the protective gear and wireless monitors Cisco had him in would’ve been an understatement. “It’s a little snug.”

Cisco squeezed his shoulder. “At least you’ll be moving so fast no one will see ya.” Cisco put his arm around Barry’s shoulder-

(“Come on, Barry, whose boyfriend are you? Mine or Cisco’s?” Caitlin would always joke when it came to Cisco and his bromance with Barry)

-and led him around their tent set up. “You see, you thought the world was slowing down, but really it wasn’t. You were moving so fast it only looked like everyone else was standing still.” If Barry thought he was getting an almost drug induced high from his newfound abilities, it was nothing compared to Cisco acting as if he discovered that unicorns were real. Who knows, after the particle accelerator they probably were.

Cisco quickly explained what Wells and Cisco would be monitoring while showing off his newest headset device. Or _toy_ , as Cisco proudly proclaimed. A _toy_ that would be able to block out sonic booms in order to still put out transmissions.

Wells told Barry to go for it, but still show at least _some_ restraint. Barry wondered if he had to say that to avoid getting sued since no one made Barry sign release papers, or if he was being sarcastic and really just wanted to see Barry fall on his face. After nodding his affirmation Barry placed his feet on the starting point, he took a moment to eye Cisco pointing some sort of measuring gun at him, and just _ran_.

The ground beneath his feet was nothing, all he felt was the air moving around him, a breath barely leaving his lungs. Unlike yesterday he had things in his way, things that could break, this time all he had was the tar road of the landing strip.

Time felt like nothing to him, he was both completely aware of his body and surrounding, yet also completely oblivious to it all.

Until a flashback hit him.

The night his mother died, the wind, his mother begging and screaming. The man in yellow and his lightning.

His mind might have tuned out but his body was still going, and it went into a pile of plastic water barrels. Water exploded around him, the plastic was singed and melted, and his arm hurt. Smatterings of his own blood mixed with the water and Barry grunted in his sudden pain that shot up his arm. Barry wasn’t a doctor but he was pretty sure he had broken his arm.

* * *

“So get this, your arm was broken.” Cisco swiped at the screen showing an X-ray. “And now it’s not.”

 “Not?” Barry asked, now feeling his intact wrist.

Cisco scratched the back of his head. “I dunno what to tell you. You had a fracture, like three hours ago, and now it looks like it was never there.”

“How is that even possible?”

Cisco let out a breath of air. “I have no freakin’ idea.” He reached behind him and retrieved the red helmet Barry had been wearing earlier, except now it was partially black and melted. “You need to learn to stop.” Cisco ruffled Barry’s hair before walking away.

Barry stared at his wrist, rubbing it, feeling for any twinge of pain. Nothing, it felt the same as it had felt last night-

Cisco. He had to talk to Cisco about where Cait was buried and what her funeral was like.

Before he could turn around Wells rolled up to him. “What was that back there, Allen?”

Barry quickly explained his mother’s murder and what Barry saw that night, when he saw the man in yellow, the man who killed his mom.

“I can honestly say you’re one of a kind, Mr. Allen.”

Barry sighed, disappointed. Of course it was impossible. He hadn’t forgotten about his mother or her unsolved murder. Or rather, that her actual killer was out there somewhere. His mission had taken to the back burner in recent years, but without it he never would’ve met Felicity or her beefed up boss who was none other than the Arrow. Even if he could never tell anyone about that, not even Cait.

Barry shook his head, he needed to talk to Cisco. He caught Cisco’s attention and waved him over. “Cisco, can we talk, alone?”

Cisco nodded and Harrison held up his hands in defeat. “I know when I’m not wanted, I’ll leave you two alone.”

Cisco went up to Barry and sat the blackened helmet to the side. “What’s up, Barry?”

Barry wrung his hands,not sure how to start this. Did he really need to know the details? Could he put his friend through reliving her death? “It’s about Cait.” On the other hand, Barry just had to know.

Cisco nodded. “Of course. What do you want to know?”

Barry realized his hands were shaking, and he took in a deep breath to prepare himself for whatever Cisco might tell him. “How did she die, exactly?” Cisco looked away and swallowed. “I’m sorry, Cisco, but I have to know.”

Cisco nodded. “Yeah, I get that, but are you sure you want to know? It wasn’t pretty.”

Barry stalled. He could just back out of this, pretend Cait died peacefully in her sleep surrounded by kittens. But he couldn’t do that, it wouldn’t be fair to Cait’s memory to throw her in an organized box and let it be. “What happened that night, Cisco?”

Cisco’s eyes had a faraway look in them, and he looked off to the side as he spoke. “Somehow an anomaly got in and messed with a lot of stuff. Ronnie and I were going to the pipeline to manually turn it off, but we needed more time, so Caitlin went to the freezer to get a coolant that would buy us some time.” Cisco shook his head, giving Barry a sad smile. “Except we ran out of time. Ronnie died, sixteen other people died and Caitlin froze to death.”

Hypothermia took awhile to set in, depending on temperature, body type. No matter what, hypothermia wasn’t a good way to go.

He squeezed his eyes shut. “You said you identified her body.”

“They started wheeling out bodies, and, well, yeah.” He didn’t want to say it. _I saw Caitlin’s dead body_. Barry didn’t blame him, he still didn’t even want to accept it. “I think it was quick, for her at least.”

Barry opened his eyes. “What makes you say that?” As much as he hated that there could’ve been no hope for her after going into the freezer, he didn’t want to hear that she suffered.

“From the time that she went to the basement to when I saw her get wheeled away, it had only been an hour, two hours tops.” Cisco looked a little confused as he wracked his head around, trying to remember what he had been trying to repress. “She didn’t look like someone who had just slowly died. Half of her body was encased in ice. That should’ve taken longer than two hours.”

Barry was thankful that he was unable to picture what Cisco was describing. He hated their lack of a goodbye, but at least his last memory of her was pink cheeked and glowing.

“I told the EMT people who she was, and they told me that I would be called in to officially identify her. I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t know about you going into a coma at the time, so I thought I would spare you from that. From seeing her like that.” Moisture gathered at Cisco’s eyes, but they wouldn’t condense and fall.

“Thanks, Cisco,” he muttered.

“No problem.” He shrugged it off. “I guess I was lucky that they found some sort of ID on her. They didn’t need me to go in anymore.”

“That’s good. How was the funeral?”

Cisco looked at his hands. “Iris took care of it.”

“Good.”

“Her mom showed up.”

Barry froze. “She didn’t give a damn when her daughter was alive, what right did she have to care then?”

“Barry.” Cisco placed a hand on Barry’s arm. “I was pissed too, but I wasn’t going to toss her out of a funeral. Seemed like a dick move.” Cisco clapped his hands together. “So, that’s enough of the depressing dead best friend talk for one day.” Cisco got up and started heading towards the door. “I don’t know about you, but now I feel like watching a _Harry Potter_ marathon and eating a lot of candy.”

“Bye Cisco,” he said as he waved off his friend.

* * *

“You _can’t_ tell Dad. He doesn’t know about me and Eddie.” Iris said as she walked with him down the sidewalk. All Barry wanted to do was thank Iris for everything she’d done for him when he was out of commission, and instead he’d been treated to Eddie Thawne sticking his tongue down Iris’ throat. 

He could barely get his head around it, Detective Pretty Boy and _Iris_? When did they get together? After rescuing her laptop for her? Or when he was probably comforting her when her brother was in a coma…..Actually, on second thought that made sense.

“It doesn’t seem like anyone’s in on the secret,” Barry said.

“I was gonna tell you. When you were in the hospital, Eddie covered my father’s shifts so we could both be with you.” Iris kept eye contact with Barry, trying to both convey how serious she felt about him and daring him to challenge her claims. “I thanked him with a cup of coffee, and things just kind of, _happened_.” As much as he was unsure about their relationship, he couldn’t deny Iris’ smile. “And it’s _good_.”

Barry winced almost comically, knowing just how easy it was to fall for someone, but he still needed to look out for his family. “Dating your partner’s daughter, isn’t that against department regulations?”

Iris turned on him, her bright smile gone. “Why are you so upset?”

“I just don’t like lying to your dad. I just woke up and I don’t want to cause anything, you know?” He could barely finished his sentence before police cruisers hurriedly pulled up. One of the cop cars skidded on the rain slick road, heading straight towards them.

Without thinking he tackled Iris to the ground, landing behind a concrete structure. A sleek black car drove away from the police pile up, looking a bit smug as he evaded them.

In a second Barry had taken off and was racing towards the car, easing in and out of traffic, before crashing into the passenger’s seat, taking out the car door on his way in. The blonde haired assailant looked up in shock before reaching for his gun.

It happened again. The world around him slowed down, and he took control of the steering wheel and sharply pulled on it. The wet road and the speed made it easy for the car to flip over and skid along the street.

Barry hit his head on the ceiling of the car and a rain of glass showered on him. Various parts of him hurt, but he managed to get out of the wreckage just fine.

So did the assailant, who was walking away from the accident like it was nothing, shaking it off of him.

“Hey, Martin!” Barry yelled, and the perpetrator looked back at him, surprised again by Barry. Martin stared him down like like a predator approaching prey, walking closer and closer to Barry. What was Barry been thinking? This guy was a known killer, he could take Barry any day…..or rather, he could’ve, before Barry got his speed.

With his personal assurances, he straightened himself up and waited for what Martin would do.

He lifted his arms and from behind him heavy fog appeared, getting larger with every second.

OK so maybe Barry did have a bit of a problem here even with his speed….

The fog surrounded him, it was so thick that in moments he wasn’t able to make out Martin. Car horns filled the air. The fog had receded slightly, enough for Barry to see a car collide and fly after hitting the black car and exploding. He managed to get out of the way of the oncoming projectile and across the street in less than a heartbeat

* * *

He understood why Joe didn’t believe him when he said Clive Martin was alive and controlling the weather. He really did, it was a crazy story, but he knew what he saw.

He knew what Joe believed when it came to his mother’s death and about the lightning storm in his house, but bringing it up just then really hurt. For years everyone had called him crazy for believing what he believed. Even Cisco, Caitlin and Iris didn’t believe him, but at least they never called him crazy, never told him that his father, his kind and now broken down father, was a murderer.

Speaking of _crazy_ and _Cisco_ …..

“I wasn’t the only one affected by the particle accelerator, was I?” he yelled out as he stormed the cortex. Wells didn’t even flinch while Cisco looked guilty.

Wells glanced back at Cisco before turning his attention back to Barry. “We don’t know for sure.”

“You said the city was safe, that there no residual danger. That those eighteen people didn’t die for nothing. But that isn’t true, so what really happened that night?”

Wells explained it in a monotone voice. When the accelerator went active, the structure ruptured causing unknown energy to flood the city. Affects to the city were unknown, but on a grand scale.

“...we’ve been searching for other metahumans. Like yourself.”

“Metahumans?”

“It’s the technical term for what we’re calling them.”

“Well I saw one today.” The image of the driver’s body being rolled away affected him a little too much. That guy probably had a family, one that would never see him again because of Clive Martin. “A bank robber that can control the weather.”

“This just keeps getting cooler,” Cisco said with a smirk.

“No, it’s not cool!” Cisco’s smile started to slide. “A man _died_.” Cisco looked down in shame.

Barry then pleaded with Wells and Cisco to do something to stop Clive from hurting others, in which Wells then argued back with how much he lost from the particle accelerator. Wells told

Barry how he should let the police take care of it, to not play hero, that he couldn’t do anything.

“You’re just a boy who got struck by lightning.”

His lecture didn’t chastise Barry, only infuriate him as he stormed out of STAR Labs. Screw what Wells said, he wouldn’t let another person die because of the particle accelerator.

The problem was that he had no idea what to do.

Barry put his speed to good use and ran, ran all the way to Starling City before he could even really think about what he was supposed to do. All he really could think about was getting advice from the only hero he knew, Oliver Queen.

After one phone call and burnt jacket that he would have to replace he found himself on a rooftop overlooking the skyscrapers with the Arrow himself.

He was glad that Oliver didn’t use his voice modulator with him, but was a little confused on why he had to wear his Arrow suit. He honestly could’ve just shown up in his everyday clothes. If he was wearing his Arrow suit, why not wear the mask Barry had made him, or that pore clogging grease he used to put on? With secret identities it’s pretty much go big or get arrested, right?

Felicity must’ve gotten into Oliver’s head because instead of more death threats and glares he got an inspiring speech and some actual encouragement. Weird. Now _this_ was the Arrow that he had kinda sort of idolized last year. A hero instead of a jealous non-boyfriend to a certain executive assistant.

After Oliver finally put on the mask Barry made him, also encouraging Barry to get his own, he jumped off the freakin’ building and swung away like Tarzan.

“Cool,” Barry muttered. Even with Oliver’s words of wisdom, he wasn’t sure he could pull it off, but for the sake of Central City, he had to at least try.

* * *

Cisco looked over the items Barry brought with him as Barry spoke. “I’ve been going over unsolved cases from the past nine months and there’s been a sharp increase in unexplained deaths and missing people. Your metahumans have been busy.” Cisco’s eyes flickered from the table to Barry. “I’m not blaming you. I know you didn’t mean for any of this to happen, that Cait and Ronnie wouldn’t have wanted this, but we’ve both lost things because of this. I need your help to catch Martin, and anyone else out there like him. But I can’t do it without you.”

Cisco grinned like a kid who got away with a lie. “If we’re gonna do this, I have something that might help.”

With a skip in his step he ran over to his workshop and unveiled his most recent ‘toy.’

“It’s just something I’ve been playing with. Designed to replace turnouts firefighters traditionally wear.” Cisco sobered up as he continued to explain his creation. “I thought if STAR Labs could do something nice for the community maybe people wouldn’t be so angry at Dr. Wells anymore.”

“How is it gonna help me?”

Cisco went through a list of uses and explanations as to how it in fact could help him.

Barry scanned the red suit, once again impressed with Cisco’s ingenuity, when Cisco’s tablet beeped. “What’s that?”

Cisco grabbed his tablet and looked at it with a frown. “It’s an old program that scans for irregular weather changes. We just got a hit at an abandoned barn. I’m betting that’s where Clive is.”

* * *

He did it. He actually did it. No one died, except Clive, but he was going to decimate all of Central City, so what Joe did was self defense. So no one _good_ died. Barry could be a hero, a real actual hero, like Oliver, but less murder-y.

The icing on the cake was that Joe saw it, saw Clive control the weather, saw Barry unravel a tornado by running around it, he saw it all. He didn’t think Barry was crazy for believing the impossible. He apologized for not believing Barry in the first place, and that sore spot in his chest from Joe calling him crazy the day before healed up, unlike the rest of his heart that was still hurting.

He was on a high that his running gave him, he never really believed in getting a rush of dopamine to the brain after working out, but he felt like he could do anything in that moment.

Except maybe seeing his dad. Seeing his dad in Iron Heights was a bittersweet feeling, especially since the last time he talked to his dad he’d been announcing his engagement.

“You’ve got to let this go, you’ve got to stop worrying about me,” Henry Allen had said when Barry informed him that he was going to prove his father’s innocence. “And live your life.”

So that’s what his plan became. _Live_. What was the only thing that felt good lately? A nice healthy sprint around Central City before heading back to STAR Labs to return his red suit.

Of course _live_ wasn’t an easy plan when one is still being tormented by _death_.

“Barry.” Cisco slowly walked into the cortex.

He partially zipped up his hoodie. “Hey, Cisco, what are you still doing here?”

Cisco fiddled with his thumbs. “Just working on a few things, but I just remembered something. Thought you should know.”

He abandoned his zipper. “On what?”

Cisco made a gesture and the two began walking down the metal hallway. Barry wanted to ask for details, but Cisco looked troubled again and he didn’t want to spook Cisco out of telling him anything.

They reached the employee lockers and stopped at a certain one.

_Snow, Caitlin_

_“_ All her stuff is still here. I didn’t know if you wanted to keep it.”

It was especially hard to _live_ when the person who really made you feel alive is gone.

“Yeah, yeah.” He gulped. “Of course.”

Cisco undid the padlock and opened the locker door. Barry peered inside.

Caitlin’s jacket was still on the hook, along with a mirror that held up a picture of the two of them on the door and her make-up bag on the top shelf. A layer of dust covered everything, causing Barry and Cisco to crinkle their noses. A few binders were on the floor of the locker, but he wasn’t too interested in that.

He took Cait’s jacket from the locker, examining the durable material on the outside and the smooth material on the inside and brushing off the bits of dust, remembering when she first bought it after a day trip with Iris. He pressed it to his nose. Yep, still smelled like her, detergent and a little bit of bleach from work. He kept his eyes on the photo partially behind the mirror. It was a nice picture, Cisco had taken it before they had started dating. Cait and Barry had had too much to drink and were holding each other up while laughing. It was such a good memory, even though they barely remembered it the next morning.

Barry was so focused on the memory that it took him a moment to realize that Cait’s pockets weren’t empty. He reached in and pulled out her set of keys. Home, car, work, and other keys he never thought to ask what they opened. Her cellphone was there too, standard, now really outdated smartphone. He placed the keys and cellphone in one hand and pulled out the remaining two other items.

Her wallet and her STAR Labs ID were there, her younger self smiling from the laminated card. A quick search revealed that all of Cait’s gift cards and coupons were still resting comfortably in her wallet. The broke college student in her could never get rid of any of it until they expired…..wait.

“Cisco?” Barry’s arms held the jacket and crushed part of it to his body while his hand gripped her wallet and ID harshly.

“What is it? Is her credit card missing or something?”

Barry shook his head. “No, that’s not it. Everything’s here.”

Cisco’s brows furrowed. “Oh, OK then.”

Barry turned to him and showed him her wallet, pressing it in Cisco’s hand. “No, _it’s all here_. All of it. Has this locker been opened?”

Cisco shook his head. “The last time anyone was in here was Caitlin the night of the particle accelerator. This is the first time it’s been opened since. Barry, what’s going on?”

Barry’s heart kept beating. Something was definitely not right here. “You didn’t ID her body.”

Cisco nodded, but that mostly the product of him shaking. “No, I didn’t. No one did! Because they found…..” Cisco looked at his own hand. “Oh.”

“How was the coroner able to ID her body when her ID’s have been here this whole time?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angry at me yet? Feel free to take your frustration out on the comment section :)


	4. Feeling Like I'm Headed For A Breakdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry is starting to feel like he's losing his mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the long wait and only a short chapter, but I fell into a funk while writing this chapter and of course when I get to writing, THE FREAKIN' INTERNET PLAYS HIDE AND SEEK WITH ME. This chapter is short because it is a transitioning chapter, I didn't want to write the second and third episode because it really didn't do anything for this SB fic except make y'all read more about episodes you already know the ending to and Barry pointlessly moping. Besides, in the next chapter I get to the episode that things really get good, and I have been dying to write it.

"What the frack, Barry?"

Barry smiled into the phone despite feeling like his chest contained a hummingbird. "Nice to hear from you too, Felicity." From his desk chair Cisco didn't look away from Barry for a second.

Felicity Smoak groaned into the phone. "No, it's not you. I'm happy to hear from you, but my date the other night was a little too explosive for me to handle. Walking still kind of hurts."

Barry's ears turned red and his request stuck in his throat. "Uh, good for you?" Cisco lifted his head. _You don't want to know_ , he mouthed to Cisco.

Felicity gasped. "No! Not like that! I didn't mean….oh boy, not again." She cleared her throat and Barry couldn't decide if he wanted to speak just yet or not. "What I mean is that the restaurant I was in exploded."

"Oh gosh are you alright?" Then he almost hit himself. "Of course you're not alright, you just said it hurts to walk."

_What?_ Cisco mouthed back. Cisco and Felicity had developed a nice working relationship between coma visits and super soldier serum drop-offs, not as if Barry was surprised.

She let out a puff of air into the phone. "No, Barry, don't apologize because I'm in a bad mood. It's not your fault Oliver is an ass." Barry waved off Cisco's concerns. If Felicity could vent about Oliver, then it probably wasn't life threatening.

It looked like Oliver is yet to give up his "non-boyfriend" status just yet. Barry was glad that not everything changed while he was asleep.

"Listen, Felicity, I would love to hear you go on about other body parts Oliver is, but I called you for a reason." Cisco lost his concern and sat still froze in his chair.

"Yeah, sure. What do you need?" In the background he could hear the faint sounds of a metal wheels on concrete.

Barry's hand didn't shake, luckily able to calm his body while his mind was still in a whirlwind. "I need you to hack into the files kept at Central City General."

Felicity's voice sounded a bit fainter as she put him on speakerphone and did her cyber magic. "Intriguing. Whose file are we breaking into?"

"Caitlin Snow."

All noise on the other end of the line halted. Cisco's foot wouldn't stop tapping on the floor and Barry could only guess what Felicity must be thinking.

"Are you still-,"

"Yeah I'm still here," she said, her voice catching. "Barry, I'm so sorry for your loss, and I have absolutely no idea what you must be going through-,"

"Felicity, please,-"

"-but whatever you think you're gonna get from this, trust me, it isn't worth it."

Barry rubbed his hand down his face. "Felicity, something isn't right and I just need to check something out. Now, will you help me or should I break into the morgue myself?"

As much as she'd liked to, she couldn't think of a way to say no. "Fine! What do you want to know?"

He turned over Cait's STAR Labs ID in his hand before answering. "Who identified Cait's body?"

"Hold on a second...got it!" A pause. "Harrison Wells."

"Dr. Wells?" he breathed.

Cisco shot out of his chair to stand in front of Barry. He took the phone from Barry. "That can't be right, Dr. Wells was nowhere near a hospital the first few weeks after the particle accelerator."

"You're right, Cisco. I wasn't." Speak of the devil and he shall appear proved to be true since the man himself rolled in, that same stiff closed mouth smile almost always present on his mouth.

Cisco looked at Wells to the phone where Felicity was asking if anyone was still there, and then to Barry. "Yo, Felicity, I'll call you back later."

Cisco and Barry weren't sure what Felicity was yelling through the earpiece of Barry's cellphone, but their attention was affixed somewhere more important at the moment.

Wells clasped his hands in front of him. "Is there something you boys want to ask me?"

Barry took a step forward. "Cait's records said you ID'd her body."

The older man nodded. "I did." His face softened all at once, and he closed his eyes briefly. "I heard about what happened to Dr. Snow, and I in turn faxed photos so they could identify her. I had caused enough pain, I thought I might as well save you from having those kinds of images in your head." Wells turned his chair around and started to leave. "Be grateful you never saw her, Barry. It's best you don't think too much about the past. It distracts from the future." With an almost snobbish head turn, Cisco and Barry were left alone in the cortex.

"Mystery solved," Cisco darkly muttered. "No great conspiracy after all."

Barry walked around the long desk, and sank into the office chair behind it. "Yeah, nothing."

"Are you alright, man?" Cisco kept his distance, but didn't take his focus off his friend.

Barry rubbed his fingers through his hair in a mockery of a hand that wasn't his. "For a moment there, it felt like…." He shook his head, wanting to throw that thought out of his mind.

"What did it feel like?" Cisco bit his fingernails, almost dreading Barry's answer.

"It felt there was a chance that this was all a big dream." He smiled, but it wasn't happy, he let out a laugh, and it wasn't happy either. "Something didn't add up, so Caitlin must not really be gone. And the moment-," he choked up, making it harder to continue. "And the moment I solved it, I would just wake up, and it would be the morning that the particle accelerator would turn on." He would not cry again. All he did lately was _cry_ , and he wouldn't do that. "Is that crazy? Crazy to think that it would all go back to normal?"

Cisco squeezed his eyes shut and let out a deep breath. "Of course not. I wish this was a nightmare too. It certainly feels like it most days." Cisco's lip turned up. "Until you woke up." Cisco then full on smirked. "That's when the fun began. Things have been getting better around here. There's more life here in the past few days than there has been all year."

Barry rubbed his eyes, Cisco's words starting to cut through the fog in his head. "What are you trying to tell me?"

Cisco leaned over the table to get closer to him. "I've been devoting all my time to you and your sudden ability to run faster than a cheetah after drinking a gallon of Red Bull. Find something you can believe in, and throw yourself into it."

Barry looked around the room, Cisco's eyes seeming a bit too intense, and a little worried about how much Cisco believed in him when Barry could so easily let him down. Until his eyes caught his red suit.

That's it.

"You're right, Cisco. And I know just the thing."

* * *

 

"Barry? Hey I think he's awake!"

He groaned, not wanting to wake up. His throat felt desert dry, and his very bones felt like heavy rocks.

"Hey, hey, drink this." A straw was placed at his mouth, and he sucked on it, the sugary sweetness of the drink refreshing and just what he needed.

"Did I get him?" Barry asked, suddenly remembering the last few days.

The first time Barry passed out, it was chasing the six gunmen who had just robbed the symposium. One minute he was running, right on their tails, and the next Iris was waking him up.

Cisco and Wells were able to figure out it was low glucose levels, his metabolism was working so fast that he burned through all his calories, causing dizzy spells.

While eating three boxes of donut holes and still having room left over for fries was pretty freakin' awesome, when there were no donut holes or french fries was the real problem.

Still was, since after facing off with Danton Black and his many clones, Barry had once again passed out.

Cisco watched as Barry removed the straw and downed the Pepsi in a few gulps. "Yeah you did. You were lucky that Joe was able to sneak you out before the cops found you."

Barry nodded. When he was blindly fighting one clone after another, Cisco then had an idea to take out the original Danton Black. The plan couldn't have come a moment too soon, since Barry felt his strength weaning and his focus all over the place.

"How come you didn't think of hitting the prime Danton before I headed out?" Barry asked, a headache receding from the back of his skull.

Cisco huffed in annoyance. "In case you haven't noticed, it isn't exactly crowded here. You've only got two people behind the curtain. But it feels like just one since Wells is rolling around town doing who-knows-what and only shows up when things get interesting." He handed Barry a plate full of cookies. "Eat up, your glucose levels were way too low after fighting Multiplex. I'm trying to make some sort of energy bar that would help with your glucose, but I'm stretched too thin."

"Multiplex?" he asked through a bite of cookie.

"I told you I'd come up with a cool nickname," Cisco said, not at all humbly. He then got up and left Barry on his hospital bed to watch the news program Wells was watching.

A mixture of guilt and relief, and huh, more guilt, came from reading the headline.

"I tried to save him," Barry offered up, trying to convince himself. He wanted to save Danton because of what he had told him, about his wife.

_"He took my research so he could reap the glory, and I got to bury my best friend! Now I'm alone."_

Barry had had to hit the man to shut him up, too desperate to not hear anymore similarities between himself and a murderer. Someone who had lost all hope and gone off the deep end.

"Doesn't sound like he wanted to be saved." Barry wondered if Wells understood how personal he was taking this loss. "Some people when they break, they can't be put together again."

Barry clenched his fists, and then kept watching the news.

"Some people heal even stronger," he muttered.

He wouldn't end up like Danton. He wouldn't, because he wasn't alone. The moment Joe took him into his home, he hadn't been alone, he had had Joe and Iris.

When he got struck by lightning, he wasn't alone then either, he had had Cisco and Dr. Wells. Being a metahuman with a dead loved one didn't mean that he was going to lose his mind and turn evil.

* * *

 

Another bad metahuman down, another victory for them at STAR Labs. Except this one didn't die, unlike the other encounters. The poison gas metahuman was now rotting away in the newly converted pipeline that now served as a metahuman prison.

Barry's inner Felicity was debating exactly how illegal it was to keep someone locked up in one's basement while the rest of Barry couldn't stop staring at the freezer door.

So this was it, where it happened.

Barry could almost picture it, her frantically running down the stairs. Running into the freezer, hair flying, trying to stay calm in the face of an emergency. Except he couldn't really picture it, couldn't conjure a realistic image of her that wasn't anything other than her regular everyday self. Definitely couldn't picture something cold and lifeless.

He briefly wondered if Cait had known that she wasn't going to make it out alive, before dismissing quickly that she probably didn't have time to think at all before-

Barry ran his hand over his forehead. Enough was enough. He had to let this go, let it all go. All this obsessing and suspicions and trying to find a conspiracy or a loophole that would disprove everything he'd been told was driving him nuts. Just like those other metahumans that just couldn't let things go and ended up in the city morgue or in some mad scientist's basement.

Focusing on lighter topics, better less depressing topics besides wondering how scared his fiancee was before she died. Joe had busted Eddie and Iris, finally confronting them on their relationship. Wow did Barry regret leaving that hospital room when he did. Eddie was mortified at being caught when he had walked out a minute later, and Barry had refrained himself from making a comment. Welcome to the family, Eddie.

Barry smiled and walked out of the basement.

"Barry! There you are!" Cisco yelled as he skidded across the hallway floor, almost falling in front of Barry.

"Whoa!" He grabbed Cisco's shoulder to keep him steady. "Where's the fire?"

Cisco righted himself before answering. "Not here, but there is one on Fifth Avenue…."

Perfect, nothing can take over a mind faster than life saving danger and putting on that red suit.

He's the fastest man alive, he can run away from anything, all he had to do was figure out was how not to stop; to keep going until the memories and the crazy thoughts couldn't catch up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the short chapter, but I promise that next chapter is gonna be my usual 5k


	5. But I'm Not Crazy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry tries to put the tragic loss of Caitlin behind him, but it's easier said than done

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you've been enjoying this fic so far, because this chapter is when the plot really starts.
> 
> My tumblr is still @snowonbarry in case any one of you wants to message me directly or get updates on the making of this fic, which I post more irregularly then this fic
> 
> In case you didn't notice, I posted a fluffy prequel to this story, it's called "We Simmer" and I hope you guys check it out! Expect more fluffy prequels in the future and don't be afraid to submit prompts!
> 
> I do this for my fanfiction.net crowd, but not for my AO3 peeps, so I'm gonna fix that. I would like to thank the people who reviewed Chapter 4. Thank you so much I love getting reviews: VVSIGNOFTHECROSS and DocDC23414

The lightning did a lot of things for Barry, and crushing Cisco at ping pong while annihilating Wells was very high on the list of pros.

“Checkmate.”

Barry stopped at the chessboard, looking down in dismay and replaying the last few moves in his head. “What? Checkmate?”

Wells learned back in his wheelchair and looked up smugly. “Checkmate. I guess you still have a few things left to learn, don’t we, Mr. Allen?”

Cisco’s computer alarm went off and he pointed to the map with his paddle. “Armed robbery at 4th and Collins!”

Barry, while trying to maintain his ego, strutted to his suit and announced before leaving, “For the record I crushed it in ping pong.”

Less than a minute later Barry charged through the ongoing robbery, taking down a few men in the blink of eye and saving the driver that was on his knees. The person on the back of the truck went flying through the air when Barry pulled them off and landed on the ground with a groan. One of the goons watching the guards ran to their fallen comrade and ripped off his mask.

Shots rang out and a guard was on the ground. Barry was at the man’s side in a heartbeat and had Cisco on the other end of the line asking for the nearest hospital. While Barry was securing medical treatment for the shot guard the five robbers rode away on their motorcycles. If Barry didn’t have to take the guard to the ER he would’ve gone after them, but it seemed they would evade prison just a little longer.

* * *

 When Barry got back to the crime scene in his everyday clothes, the place was crawling with his colleagues, Joe and Captain Singh joined him while curious enough Eddie was off to the side of the crime scene with his head in both of his hands. It was easy to guess him dating Iris had come up with him and Joe.

“There’s nothing missing. It looks like someone interrupted the robbery,” Joe said with a pointed look at his son which Barry promptly ignored.

“Guard says it was three of them,” Captain Singh said.

“Actually it was five,” Barry interrupted, and then internally cursed himself. “I mean that’s how many I would bring if I were doing a robbery, of this nature,” Barry always seemed to find new ways of burying himself alive. “That’s definitely a five guy truck!” Smooth save, Allen. “Driver, two more to cover the guard, and someone used liquid nitrogen to crack open this door, and one just because. So, five bad guys.” Congratulations, the big secret was once again safe.

“Thank you, Mr. Allen for your brilliant insight.” Something told Barry that Captain Singh actually didn’t mean that.

“You may be fast but you’re slow on the improv. So nothing to catch these guys?”

“One of them lost their mask, I saw his face.”

* * *

 

The mugshots Barry had gone through had placed Leonard Snart as their bad guy of the week. Most of the time small time petty theft was Barry’s shtick, but big time criminals like Snart was what he was fueled on.

To Barry’s everlasting displeasure, Iris had discovered the exact wrong thing to get fueled by. The Streak, or rather, her own brother running around in a weird bright red outfit getting cats out of trees. A strange new hobby if anyone asked him.

His welcome distraction came by means of Felicity Smoak, the bright and bubbly computer hacker to the Arrow herself.

He had met her last year when he was investigating one of his unexplainable cases in Starling City. The tension between her and Oliver could’ve been made into a long lasting durable material from Barry’s perspective. Felicity and Barry had clicked, resulting in some much needed jealousy from Oliver, and some unfortunate mistake on Barry’s part by not immediately telling Felicity about Cait.

Their parting had been pleasant, but still awkward, followed by more awkward when he had told Cait about the whole trip when he had gotten home. Followed by a little bit of anger when he had had to admit that he had lied about why he had been in Starling City since he had told Cait he wouldn’t pursue crazy leads that would put his life in jeopardy.

A little walking in the park was all it took for Felicity to spill that she was in Central City to check up on Barry.

“Felicity, I’m fine,” he said with a smile. “What happened a few weeks ago was just me being a little nuts, but I’m fine now.”

Her ponytail bobbed as she nodded. “Good, that’s great. But can you blame me? You didn’t write, you didn’t call, you didn’t...race.”

It took him a minute to get it. “Oliver told you?”

“Please, Oliver forgot to turn his comms off.” She leaned forward. “I wanna see it.” A look of horror came over her suddenly. “And by _it_ I mean your speed, in case you thought I was talking about something else, which, which I was not.”

It took a bit to speak through his laughing. Leave it to Felicity to geek laughter out of people. Besides, a little showing off was just what he needed that day.

* * *

 

He was having fun at trivia night with his friends, until Snart got spotted at a museum attempting to steal the diamond.

In a flash he sped away from Felicity and her terrible excuses. Some of her suggestions really answered the question of why Oliver had lost his company. Nursing a hangover with a girl? That actually worked?

Leonard Snart pointed his tricked out gun at Joe and fired. Barry threw Joe out of the way, but got hit with the cold blast. It knocked him off balance and landed him on the floor.

He leaned against a pillar as the awful cold sensation seeped into his skin. The cold felt unnatural in the autumn climate and it shocked his system, it felt like claws were ripping into his insides and to keep from crying out he took deep wincing breathes.

“You OK?” Joe asked from behind his pillar.

“It burns,” he got out through clenched teeth. A thick layer of ice encased his middle and he could almost feel the blood rushing through him, trying to keep him warm.

Barry chanced a look from around his pillar, just in time to see Snart pull out his cold gun and fire another shot. He ran to the other side of the room before the ice could even hit his former hiding spot from behind the pillar.

“Time for a test run!” Snart yelled to the ceiling. “Let’s see how fast you are.” He shot again. And missed. He shot his ice gun at bystanders, but Barry was able to get them away in time, much to Snart’s annoyance. The ice that still remained on him was melting quicker by how fast he ran, but the burning remained as well as the pain that the cold always brought.

Snart pointed his gun at an employee standing in the aisle of the theatre. He fired.

The employee couldn’t do anything, but Barry could. He had to outrun the blast and save the man. He was gaining speed, starting to get ahead of it. But he wasn’t quick enough.

Barry kneeled down to see if there was any chance that the man was still alive, but he knew how easily it was to die of hypothermia; in a matter of seconds when he recalls Cai-

No. He wasn’t fast enough to save the theatre employee and for that a man was now dead.

* * *

 Barry lifted his shirt to show the blackened flesh to Cisco and Felicity.

“It’s still numb.” On the bright side, at least it wasn’t throbbing in agony like it had been earlier.

“Dude, you have frostbite,” Cisco reported.

“I thought he had hyper healing,” Felicity said from her spot.

“He does, but it’s really slow.” Barry flinched again. Slowed healing? That was never good. Cisco walked up to the X-ray screen and studied it a little, squinting at the blue and black image. “I am not very good at medical stuff.” Cisco turned back and gave them a silencing look. “But I’m learning as fast as I can, and I would bet that if it weren’t for your fast healing, you might not have healed at all. I’m pretty sure that when it comes to frostbite, amputation is the usual treatment.” Cisco shuddered, unaware of Felicity’s now green face and Barry’s still form. “Can you imagine it? Having to walk around, and like, part of your stomach is gone?”

“Cisco!” Barry reprimanded, pointing to Felicity.

Cisco sheepishly looked over Felicity using the desk behind her as a support. “Oops, sorry Smaoky.”

“No problem.” She waved away their concerns.

Barry put down his shirt and got off the makeshift medical table. “Anyways, Snart wasn’t a metahuman. He had some kind of gun, it froze things, slowed me down. Enough so that I wasn’t fast enough to save someone.” He forcibly told his body to breathe, it wouldn’t help anyone if he thought about the employee who died just like C-

It wouldn’t help anyone if he let the guilt get to him.

Felicity, noticing his distress and recognizing it from her own superhero, jumped in. “According to his records Snart didn’t even bother to finish high school, so how did he build a handheld high tech snow machine?” Felicity turned to Wells, silently asking for his input.

“STAR Labs built the cold gun,” he said, well, _coldly_.

A spark of anger went down Barry’s spine. Is that all STAR Labs did? Create cold and destruction wherever they went?

“Dr. Wells had nothing to do with this.” Cisco looked pained. “I built the gun.”

He couldn’t believe it, that Cisco would create such a terrible thing, especially after what happened to-

He really couldn’t believe it, and felt too shocked and a little betrayed that he had built such a weapon.

“You did?” Barry croaked out. “Why?”

“Because speed and cold are opposites. Temperature is measured by how quickly the atoms of something are oscillating. The faster they are, the hotter it is. And when things are cold, they’re slower on the atomic level. When there’s no movement at all, it’s called-,”

“Absolute zero,” Barry cut in. How fitting that the only thing that could take away his ability to do good was cold. Cold took everything.

“Yeah.” It almost felt like Cisco was agreeing with the internal conclusion he had come to. “I designed a compact kryo engine to achieve absolute zero. I built it to stop you.” A pin could’ve dropped and everyone would’ve heard it. “When you woke up with your powers after hearing about, well you know, I, I, I didn’t know what you would’ve done! Grief makes people do crazy things, and look at the metahumans we’ve come across! Martin, Danton, the gas guy, I needed to make sure that if you ever went off the deep end, you could be stopped.”

“Well I didn’t, did I?” He yelled back. “I understand you were worried, but how could you build something like this? After the particle accelerator how could you make something that _freezes_?”

Cisco looked miserable and just a bit cracked along his edges. “Danton Black tarnished his wife’s memory to where all that was left was death and destruction.” Cisco met Barry head on. “I didn’t want you doing that to _hers_.”

“After all this time and after all we’ve been through? I thought we were friends.”

Cisco stepped forward. “We are, Barry-,”

“If you had just _told me_ , I would’ve been prepared. But instead someone died today. Just like _her_. How’s that for tarnished memory?” Cisco clenched his eyes shut, trying to block it out.

“And I have to live with that.”

Barry shook his head. “No, Cisco. We all do.” It wasn’t just Cisco’s fault, it was everyone’s fault, and to some degree, even _hers_.

He needed to get out of the room and he walked out like a regular joe rather than speeding out like he was accustomed to. He wasn’t in the mood to use powers that could go away as easily as she did.

* * *

 

He couldn’t not use his powers for too long, however. It was the only way he could just think without thinking. The physical exertion made dealing with everything better.

The only place where he could really test himself while not actually going anywhere was the special treadmill Cisco had whipped up. Though Cisco wasn’t someone Barry wanted to think about at the moment, his lack of faith still stung.

“Barry!” Felicity yelled. She could never really keep herself away from slightly illegal bases of operation, now could she?

He put his hands on his knees, bent over as he fought to catch his breath, the edges of his vision were blurring as he glanced at the brownies he had brought earlier in case he had another glucose related incident.

“What are you doing? You should go back to your hotel.” It was harder to breathe than it really should’ve been. “Get some sleep.”

Felicity made no move while she observed him practically wheezing. “You should too.” She looked horrified for a second as she clarified. “Not back to my hotel, I mean you should get some sleep.”

He stepped down to sit on the treadmill. The brownies were looking better with every second. “I can’t. Every time I close my eyes, I see that man’s face.” He tried to keep his mind off the details and onto the overall death part to keep him from going nuts. “I couldn’t save him. I have to go faster.”

If he was faster, than it would be harder for the cold gun to slow him down, and he wouldn’t let himself be stopped by cold again.

“Barry, it’s not your fault. And it’s not Cisco’s either. I know you’re upset and still grieving, but you have to look at this from his point of view.”

“No, I get it. He didn’t trust me.”

“Barry, when you met us, me, Oliver and Digg, we were this well oiled archery machine, but it didn’t start out that way. Unlike you guys we didn’t start this overnight, we came one at a time.

Trust me, when it came to saving the day and having so much power, it took more than watching Oliver do the salmon ladder for me to trust him.” Leave it to Felicity to get into Barry’s head.

Barry scoffed. She was right, but Barry and Cisco had been friends long before any of this started, when they bumped into each other at a convention when they were 21 and Caitlin had just turned 23. Felicity and the others hadn’t had movie nights and sleepovers and crammed for finals together. The trust between Barry and Cisco had already been there, until Barry discovered that their trust was suddenly gone.

While Barry was still seething, Felicity wasn’t done. “I’ve seen what this life can do to people, it’s a lonely path. Don’t make it any lonelier than it has to be.” With a few clicks of her heels she was gone, leaving Barry to contemplate just what she had said.

* * *

 

_Where are you, Snart?_ Barry thought hours later as he stared at the map on the blue tinted screen.

“I figured out a way to track down Captain Cold,” Cisco said, his face buried in his tablet as he entered the cortex.

Barry didn’t react to the news, not wanting to interact with Cisco.

Wells rolled his eyes at Barry’s childishness. “Barry, listen to him.”

He sighed and kept his annoyance clear and his arms crossed. “How?”

“The cold gun is powered by an engine controlled unit, a micro computer that regulates air/fuel ratio so the self cooled fluid in the chambers don’t overflow and explode!” Cisco marched to the computers next to Felicity and Wells as his speech became more animated with his excitement. “The ECU was receiving updates wirelessly from my tablet. If I boost the signal using Central City’s network, and send a false update, we’ll get a ping back and then-,”

“We can locate Snart,” Wells mumbled in a satisfied manner.

Barry’s ego hated to admit it, but the plan didn’t sound bad. “How long will it take?”

Cisco hissed as he thought. “Well first I have to hack into the city’s mainframe network, so, uh, I don’t know. Thirty minutes maybe?”

Felicity interrupted and showed off her superior hacking skills by doing it in less than a minute. Cisco, with an impressed smile, worked with Felicity with their updates and signals and other stuff that Barry wasn’t really paying attention to. All he cared about was that it would all lead him to Snart.

“We got him. He’s heading west on Nelson towards the train station.” Wells tilted his head. “If he’s leaving I think it’s because Mr. Snart has gotten what he came for.”

Before the other two people in the room could blink Barry was already suited up and ready to make Snart see justice.

Cisco beamed at Barry, tapping his head. “When we put our minds to it, dude, nothing can stop us!”

Barry reached to the side of his own head and turned off his comm.

Cisco’s smile melted off in an instant. “Oh, you turned your earpiece off, how are we gonna talk to each other?”

Barry’s anger, at Snart and the weapon he chose, at Cisco for his betrayal, at the world itself for making such beautiful things only to destroy them in a heartbeat, made throwing out his words difficult. “I don’t feel like talking right now.” Before anyone could argue he was gone.

He was speeding down the streets, zipping through cars and buildings and people, and it felt like he was going faster than he ever has before, but he wasn’t fast enough.

By the time he got to the train station the cops were already there. With a quick search revealed Eddie and Joe at the train tracks, hiding behind a bench and shivering at sudden temperature drop while taking cover from the fight Barry was not expecting to get involved in.

He knew Snart was going to be there, using his gun on anyone who stood in his way. He wasn’t expecting his opponent. Or rather, what she was doing.

A woman with long white hair threw a long icicle at Snart and it hit the wall behind Snart and shattered. Snart having more important people than Barry to deal with wasn’t the unexpected part. The ice was coming from her hands was the unexpected part.

Barry’s anger could’ve melted the ice. Did Cisco make _more_ cold related weapons?

Snart ran away from his opponent and towards the train that was rushing through the train stop. The woman gave a loud and angry grunt before shooting ice on the ground. Snart fell and slid a few yards from the sudden skidding.

Barry seized his opportunity and took it. He sped over to Snart and grabbed him by his parka.

Snart barely reacted to him and head butted him. Barry’s grip on Snart tightened while he gasped in pain. In retaliation he punched Snart in the face.

“ _No!_ If anyone is gonna hurt him, it’s gonna be _me!_ ”

Barry screamed out in pain as his back froze.

The woman dug her nails into Barry’s shoulders and pushed him off Snart, the speedster skidding on the already placed ice.

“C’mon Frost, are you sure you want to get into this?” Snart sneered. “Are you sure you want to mess with me?” Barry barely heard him taunt her as he was on the floor trying to someone dispel the ice from his back.

“ _You_ messed with _me_.” A cloud surrounded Frost’s hands and she moved closer to Snart. And then Barry almost hit himself when he came to his conclusion. A rather obvious one.

The ice wasn’t coming from some device, the ice was coming from her skin itself.

The woman was a metahuman.

An ice metahuman that was about to kill someone.

Barry wasn’t going to make it so easy for her.

He sped over to the woman, and ignoring the agony on his back and the sudden loss of heat from being in her vicinity, he threw her into the ticket booth.

He looked back and saw Snart get on the oncoming train. He ran after him, but slipped on Frost’s ice and landed next to the tracks. He got up, righted himself and with a huff he followed Snart.

He located which car Snart was in and crashed through the window. When Barry made his appearance Snart raised his cold gun at him.

“There’s nowhere to run!” he yelled over the commotion.

“I didn’t see you before,” Snart declared, his cold gun still pointed at Barry’s chest. “Your mom know you’re out past your bedtime?”

Barry almost wanted to laugh, so he mocked Snart right back. “If you wanted to get away then you should’ve taken something faster than a train.”

Snart’s smile remained on his face. “That’s as if I wanted to get away.” Barry’s grim smile dropped. “I’ve seen your weakness. At the armored car and at the theatre, and just now with Frost. So while you’re busy saving everybody, I’ll be saving myself.” He pointed to the floor underneath Barry’s feet and fired ice.

The lights started flickering and the train kept dangerously jolting. The passengers were all screaming at the destruction around them and Barry was thrown about, almost numb that he was outsmarted so easily.

“Good luck with that!” Snart yelled before jumping out of the train car.

The train derailed and sent the train compartment rolling. Broken glass shattered everywhere and it hung in the air, people were floating as if they could fly and the entire compartment looked like gravity had taken a vacation. But it hadn’t, Barry was going fast enough that time seemed to slow down.

Barry sped in and out of the train, grabbing passengers and delivering them to safety in as many as he could carry. All of them safely on the ground in a matter of seconds as the train cars rolled and crashed repeatedly into the unforgiving surface. After getting the last person out, he landed harshly just yards away from the crashes.

He tried getting up only to receive a blast of ice to his back.

Barry breathed heavily as he rolled over, trying to deal with the exertion and the pain. “You’re pretty fast, kid,” Snart noted as he walked closer. “But not fast enough.” Barry’s entire middle section was covered in ice, making it near impossible to move, and painful to try. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Barry managed to get out through gritted teeth.

“You forced me to up my game. Not just with this gun, but with how I think about the job. Before getting my hands on gun this I had to get creative with a certain _cold_ woman.” He smirked. “It’s been educational.”

Snart dropped his gun as he flew through the air, ice covering the front of his parka.

“ _Creative_?” Frost appeared from behind a piece of wreckage, and Barry’s body dealing with the ice covering his body made his vision blur, but he knew that whatever expression Frost had was an angry one.

Frost marched over to where Snart was laying on the ground and grabbed him by his coat with one hand, and poised her right hand over her head in a striking position, her hand already glowing with her namesake.

Barry was stuck where he was. From his position it looked like Frost was going to take out Snart before Barry could do anything. Barry had never dealt with this metahuman, and they seemed to be after the same guy, but what was to stop her from taking out Barry as well?

He was just relieved when backup arrived.

“Let it go, Elsa,” Cisco commanded, a tricked out gun in his hands, pointed at Frost.

“Stop right there or he’ll shoot!” Barry yelled.

Snart sneered from his position at her feet. “Don’t bother with this one, Streak. She may act all high and mighty, but I know her. You’re a killer in the making, Frost.”

Frost seemed like she was about to attack him, with her glowing blue hands about to toss around more ice shards, but seemed to think better by it as she took a quick glance at Barry and back at Cisco. And then she froze where she stood, not taking her eyes off Cisco, who couldn’t take his eyes off her.

It took him a blink of a second, that felt like minutes to him, to fully understand what he had just seen.

He was the fastest man alive, he could outrun anything and anyone. But no matter how fast Barry was-

The hair was different, the skin was almost blue instead of almost pink, but oh dear God it was her.

-there were some things that no one can outrun.

“Caitlin?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't expect that, did ya?


	6. I'm Just A Little Unwell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caitlin and Leonard Snart's plans to steal a diamond go awry when a mysterious red blur foils their plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put a lot of work into this chapter, and this chapter arguably sets the tone of the entire story and launches the starting point to the parts all of you are really dying to get to
> 
> A special thanks to my favorite readers, the people who review. I just want you guys to know that it's all of your words that motivate me, if it weren't for you guys asking me to continue I never would've put so much work into it nor would I have gotten this done this soon
> 
> Orion Ultor, OutlawQueenAsLove, VSIGNOFTHECROSS, Snowberry forever!, Alkeni, TKDGirl2016, and HappyBrainiac

_Two Days Earlier_

 

“Frost?” Leonard said, calling out to Caitlin. He must’ve noticed that she hadn’t said anything.

  
She couldn’t move, Caitlin wouldn’t dare blink, oh gosh was she even breathing?

  
The local reporter on the dingy TV screen was still reporting the robbery that had taken place behind her a few hours earlier. It was an insignificant crime, would be completely forgotten by tomorrow with the recent crime wave of “affected” individuals.

  
With superhuman criminals coming out of the woodwork, no one would pay too much attention to a criminal who stole a diamond that one time. In and out and onto the next job Leonard wanted to use her for.

  
Until now. Now everything had changed, and Caitlin’s almost forgotten mission was brought forthright at the center of her thoughts. She wanted to cry. How could she have let things go on this long? How could she have strayed this far from her goal?

  
Behind the reporter the police were surveying the scene talking to witnesses. The CI’s were at the ground collecting evidence. Including a certain CI.

  
Barry Allen was awake.

  
“Frost, I don’t know, nor do I care, what’s going on in that little frozen head of yours,” Leonard breathed out with his usual bored sounding tone. “But if you don’t get yourself together by the heist I think we’re gonna have a problem.”

  
It was him. Dark brown hair that always managed to stick straight up at the front, sneakers that belonged to a nerdy high school kid, and the same wardrobe that every science professor wished they had. There he was, crouched down with a plastic bag in one hand and tweezers in the other. Just like she remembered him

  
She wasn’t at all like he remembered her.

  
Caitlin or as Leonard and Mick called her, Frost, shook her head. She couldn’t have this panic attack in front of him, especially when all her plans were now shot to hell and all her sacrifices now meant nothing.

  
“I want to renegotiate our agreement.” She turned around and stared him down, keeping her head up and twisting her fingers around, reminding him who had the real power between them. She still abhorred violence, but if she could convince him with the threat of it, then she’d do it.

  
He raised his eyebrow. “Do you now?”

  
She narrowed her eyes. “I want out.”

  
“Out?”

  
She took a step forward. “I want out of this little crime team thing you got going on. I don’t want to be your conveniently placed weapon anymore.” She widened her eyes, knowing how uncomfortable they made people now.

But of course he wasn’t like most people.

  
Leonard let out a chuckle. “What’s brought this on? Because not too long ago you were just _begging_ to join my ‘little crime team’. Has your brain frozen over too?”

  
The air around them dropped a few degrees, and Caitlin knew that because she suddenly got a little warmer, and felt a little more human.

  
“Things have changed. I want out. _Now_.” Icy mist formed around her hands at her emotional turmoil.

  
Leonard didn’t break eye contact for a few seconds before he spoke. “Fine.” Caitlin’s heart felt a little lighter. “But on one condition.” And then it sunk again. “Finish this one last job, and then I will give you the choice to leave. Deal?”

  
There was a catch, or strings attached, she knew that, it never was simple with Leonard Snart, but she was desperate, and whatever happened would be better than if she stayed and lost more and more of who she used to be.

  
“Deal.”

* * *

 

Much later Frost held tight to Leonard as they sped off to their designated spot to catch the armoured van. She could never really call herself Caitlin when she was doing things like this, and since now there was nothing keeping her in the city she desperately wanted to escape, Frost needed to get this job done quick.

  
When she first met Leonard and saved his sister, she refused to give out her name, and after a display of her abilities the Snart siblings had started calling her by that nickname. It was a little too cutesy for a thief that shot ice out of her hands, but it started growing on her until she responded to it as easily as if it was her actual name.

  
After this, she could leave Central City and no one would ever know she was there in the first place, not like anyone was looking for her. After this she could start the second part of her mission and find a cure. If she found a cure for herself, she would never be able to harm anyone again. The second part was all she had left, after neglecting the first part until it solved itself. She had already let Barry down in such an unforgivable way, she wouldn’t let herself down too.

  
She could only hope that Barry was doing alright. Waking up from a long term coma wasn’t easy. One had to deal with muscular atrophy, likely memory loss, headaches, possible brain damage-

  
“Geesh, Frosty, try freezing me to death after the job!” Leonard admonished over his shoulder. Caitlin looked and saw that a thin layer of ice coated his back where her arms had been wrapped around him. She needed to get her emotions and her powers in check before Leonard found a way to use them against her. Again. He wouldn’t hesitate either. He only called her ‘Frosty’ when he was pissed.

  
“A hundred and eighty two seconds, gentlemen,” Snart said into his comm. Caitlin shook herself out of her pity party and focused on the job. The motorcycle roared to life as they maneuvered to the side of the van. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed the crane linking itself to the back of the van.

  
She was glad her entire face and hair was covered by her helmet and bodysuit even though she made sure not to look at the cameras. She could never be too careful when it came to showing her own face, no matter how different it now was. Now more than ever she had to hide. If she had cops on her trail now, evading them without Leonard would be time consuming, and could possibly reveal her identity.

  
The van came to a screeching halt and the hired lackeys threw down the drivers. She leapt off of the bike and ran to her position at the back of the van. Behind her she heard the grunts of the drivers as the lackeys hit them. She tried to pay it no mind.

  
“Hey! Cool it,” Leonard said while glancing at her to make she got the pun. “Only a hundred fifty-eight seconds to go.” He nodded to her, silently urging her to hurry up.

  
The warmth was quickly absorbed into Frost, taking the edge out of her bad mood, before releasing it through her hands to the lock on the armoured van as ice. She stopped a few seconds later when the small bits of metal in the lock started to crack audibly as they got smaller.

  
She turned to Leonard and nodded, to which he responded by throwing his body through the door effortlessly. She rolled her eyes, and wondered briefly if that was really the best way to take down the frozen door. She might have to do the math later when she had free time.

  
In the span of three seconds she heard the lackeys at the front all suddenly groan and fly out of the air and land solidly to the ground. A streak of red came hurtling at her, and she barely noticed the sensation of hands gripping her forearms before she too was knocked to the pavement. The streak of red grazed Leonard, loosening the grip of his mask on his face before taking off to the others to free the guard.

  
She wheezed on the ground, trying to catch her breath from the sudden impact. Leonard ripped off his mask and went to her side, his anger clear on his face.

  
“Don’t worry, I’m not dead,” she growled. If he even dared to somehow blame this on her she would give him her own version of Hell frozen over. The evading the cops part of the job was his responsibility, and all be damned if it was her fault. Her part was just to show up and freeze stuff. For now at least.

  
Before Leonard could come up with some sort of comeback one of the guards tried running, only for one of their hired goons to pull out his gun and fire. The guard went down, but then that red streak came back and knelt to the guard’s side.

  
_Knelt_

  
It was a person. Masculine figure, medium built, little on the scrawny side, wearing a ridiculous red costume kneeling by the side of the fallen guard.

  
She gaped. What the hell? Weren’t people like her supposed to be criminals, not the good guys?

  
Leonard grabbed her by her arm and forced her up, interrupting her gawking. They and the others went back onto their bikes and sped off, leaving the perplexing whatever he was, with the guard.

  
As they sped off to avoid capture, Frost really didn’t care much about the man who just screwed up the heist or what his deal was. Because he just made her odds of leaving the Snarts and Mickey that much harder for her. And if she came across him again she wouldn’t be too starstruck to really give him her all.

* * *

 

 

The guys that Leonard called in to help weren’t her favorite people. She’d worked with them before months earlier when she had first asked for Leonard’s help stealing neurological medical research. These were also the same people that had to get a new guy to join their crew because of her.

  
After what happened to their fallen and frozen comrade when he stole a kiss from ‘Snart’s Ms. Frost’, they only spoke to her when it was absolutely necessary. They would stare and let their fingers hover over their guns, but they knew how much Leonard valued her skills, and the debt he owed her.

  
Caitlin Snow squeezed her eyes shut and tried to block out the image. She didn’t mean for it to happen. Her emotions had been flying all over the place, she had been terrified and wanted him to let go of her, and had been so warm….

  
No. She shook her head harder. It wasn’t her fault. In theory she knew what she could do, absorb the heat out of anything to fuel her powers and to keep herself alive, but it hadn't crossed her mind what the simple act of kissing her would do.

  
In her darkest moments she could still remember the snowflake patterns that crisscrossed his cheeks after he had lost his strength to hold her. How draining him of his warmth was so blissful that even after he went into hypothermia and lost conscious she had held onto him until even his hair was covered in her namesake.

  
By definition, she was a parasite, and unwanted parasites should be removed if not eliminated.

  
That’s why part two was so important. No matter how angry Leonard and the others were, there was no way they were madder than Frost.

  
Which was saying quite a bit since Leonard was obsessing over the camera footage from their botched heist.

  
“There’s been rumors the last few weeks,” the man who Frost loved to call ‘Head Goon’ said as he sauntered past his men and to Leonard. His lumberjack beard that usually made men seem nicer only made him seem more like a creep. “People have been seeing a red blur tearing through the streets. What the hell is it?”

  
Frost felt like smiling for a whisper of a moment, she knew something that Head Goon didn’t know? By her current standards that was what made a good day for her.

  
“Maybe it was a drone,” one of his men supplied. Frost kept her mouth shut. “Some top secret military project.”

  
Leonard leaned over really close to his computer screen. “When I was a kid my grandfather used to take my sister and I to this diner at the motorcar. The food was for crap, but the view was great. Right across from the Central City precinct.” She sat down on one of the crates. When Leonard was in exposition mode he could take awhile before he actually made his point. “I still go there. I listen to their radios, I learn their response times. There are forty banks in Central City, each within sixty seconds of police response. That’s why there is an advantage in hitting a moving target. Once the armoured car calls 911 we had one hundred eighty-two seconds before any cop could be on the scene. No one could’ve gotten there fast enough to stop us. But something did.”

  
She shifted farther back on the crate, knowing that Leonard was going to start yelling and dealing out his version of punishments. She had learned from experience that trying to stop him was pointless, and would only give her a new scar. She knew she did everything he told her to do, and she didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire, not again. Head Goon and his boys on the other hand didn’t follow Leonard’s rules.

  
Leonard’s eyes went to Head Goon. “And you lost your cool. You know the rules, we don’t shoot guards or cops unless it’s the only option. We don’t need the heat.”

  
“The heat?” Head Goon asked in disbelief. He side eyed Frost. “Things are cold enough with little miss killer over there.” Head Goon walked forward until he was nose to nose with Leonard.

“What the hell do you think the blur is, Snart?” He didn’t answer, but she knew better than to underestimate Leonard’s intelligence. But Head Goon didn’t. “Right. Screw this, and screw you. I’m out.”

  
A gunshot rang out. Head Goon dropped to the floor with the sound of a cracking bone. Caitlin Snow jumped. This wasn’t the first time he had killed someone in front of her, but it wasn’t exactly a common occurrence either.

  
The years of medical training started kicking in. The bullet had hit his chest and more than likely hit one of his ribs, causing it to fracture and send tiny pieces of bone to pierce his vessels, his heart and his lungs. The shock wave from the bullet would obliterate the surrounding tissue and then rupture the heart. Clamps, gauze, needle and thread, alcohol and a miracle-  
He was dead within seconds of hitting the ground.

  
Frost looked away and tampered down her urge to take his pulse and check if there was anything she could do. She also knew from experience that there wasn’t.

  
“Well if you’re out, you’re out,” Leonard said, glancing at Frost before staring down the other two men. He waved his gun around as if he hadn’t just killed someone. “This blur, is a man. We’re gonna have to up our game.”

  
She wasn’t a doctor anymore, that was over. The growing pool of blood was making its way to her crate.

  
As much as she hated that blurred man for messing with her plans, she was more scared of Leonard if he decided that saving his sister’s life wasn’t enough to keep Frost alive.

* * *

 

 

Caitlin did everything she could not to touch alcohol.

  
In the beginning of all of it she would drink just to feel a little less miserable, or to sleep a little bit easier so she wouldn’t have to deal with her reality anymore.

  
It didn’t make dreaming easier. All of her dreams were happy. The particle accelerator was a success, nothing went wrong and everything was good. She would go out for drinks with Cisco and Ronnie, and later Barry and Iris would join them. After celebrating Barry and her would go home and have their own private celebration.

  
Then after that, little random snippets of their lives together. Wedding planning before deciding it was too stressful and just simply eloping. The honeymoon, the anniversaries, the family dinners, the accomplishments at work and the quiet nights spent inside. Going out with Ronnie and Cisco and Barry, seeing movies and then pretending that the questionable science didn’t make them all cringe. Sometimes her mother was even in the background. She dreamed of it all.

  
But then she would wake up and she would find herself sleeping in the back of an abandoned car, or more recently, finding Leonard and Micky planning their next hit, and it would all come back to her.

  
It took her awhile to realize that it was the alcohol that was fueling her imagination, so she went cold turkey, not even her usual glass of wine would she risk the dreams for. The constant glum was better than the crushing disappointment.

  
What was Cisco doing right then? Was he still at STAR Labs? She could almost imagine him tinkering with whatever random idea managed to possess him that week. Marathoning Harry Potter movies in his graphic T-shirts. Just the thought of him almost brought a smile to her face.

  
She knew there was someone else she could be thinking about, but not right then with Snart and the others just a few feet away, especially with that certain someone walking around town. It wasn’t time to open that can of worms.

  
The remaining goons, after disposing of their former leader’s body, hadn’t come back. She couldn’t say she was sorry that she was probably never going to see them again, since every time they worked with her someone ended up dead, but she wasn’t exactly thrilled with the guy Snart had called up to score ‘something special’. She didn’t ask questions and frankly she didn’t care. The faster they could get that streak guy out of the way the faster she would be free to leave the city, for the better.

  
Small wooden and metal boxes littered the long tables in the dimly lit warehouse, making it hard to see the labeling on the boxes or what was inside them other than the vague shapes of devices. What she didn’t know couldn’t kill her too much, so she did her best not to pay attention to them.

  
“You wanted state of the art, Snart, I bring you state of the art, good sir!” the seller yelled in a nasal voice that reminded her of a more annoying version of Hartley.  
“What’s this?” Leonard inquired, stopping at an open metal briefcase.

  
“That may not look like much, but never judge a book by its cover, you know?”

Leonard held the heavy looking device in his hands, testing its weight.

  
The seller droned on. But what he said caught Frost’s attention. “The fire is highly concentrated, combustible liquid fuel that ignites on contact with the air.”

  
They had her full attention now. Mickey had terrible burns on his body, yet seemed obsessed with fire. She hoped that Leonard would just leave that weapon alone and not let Mickey have it. Mickey playing with lighters freaked her out enough, and she thrived in high temperatures.

  
“I don’t need to heat things up,” Leonard said, putting the fire gun down, much to her relief. “I need to slow them down.” He moved away to another metal briefcase and opened it up, and as she took a few steps closer, revealing another gun and a set of goggles.

  
“That’s the one then. You were drawn right to it. Stolen from STAR Labs after the _incident_.”

  
She froze right where she stood. STAR Labs? What on Earth could they have stolen? Their superconductors? Their sound powered light bulbs? Or maybe one of Caitlin’s lab rats from her experiment on the effects of chocolate and blood pressure? She couldn’t think of anything that Snart could want that STAR Labs could’ve made.

  
“With nothing but a skeleton's security crew to guard the tech inside.” Leonard fired up the gun, a blue glow emanating from between the cracks of the metal plates. “It emits some sort of substance, not sure what it is, like a white flame. But it’s not hot, it’s cold.”

  
Cold?

  
He reached for the goggles with an unusual interest. “Glasses look like they’re made out of the same tech. What are they for?”

  
The seller looked pleased at his deal nearing its close. “The glare. You’ll see,” he said with a sleazy smile.

  
Leonard slipped on the goggles, studying the weapon in his hands like Dr. Caitlin used to look at X-rays. “Who else knows you took this?”

  
“Just us,” he said, glancing at Frost, barely reacting to her presence. Frost, who wasn’t outwardly reacting to anything because there was now a rushing whirlwind going on in her head.

  
_STAR Labs. Cold. Stolen._

  
“No,” he said. “I think just me and Frost can keep this little secret. Sorry, pal.”

  
He turned around and pointed the cold gun at the seller, and blasted pure cold at him. The seller was thrown back and landed on the cement flooring with a thud. He didn’t make a sound as slowly his body was covered in ice, his expression of shock scarring the jovial look he had just been sporting.

  
Caitlin looked away and held back a yell. She pressed her fingernails into the palms of her hand. More medical facts and procedures went through her analytical mind, but her body was seized by terror, gripped by instinct.

  
After having his fun, he turned to her. She raised her hands protectively over herself, but knew very well that she would die much quicker than the seller had if he turned his cold gun on her. He didn’t fire.

  
“Don’t worry, Frost, I know you can keep a secret. I don’t even know your name.” He examined his cold gun with a childish look of glee.

  
She swallowed her fear down when she noticed her opportunity. “I can go now. You don’t need me anymore.”

  
He raised an eyebrow at her. “What are you talking about?”

  
She pointed to the cold gun. “Only reason you keep me with you is because I can freeze things. Now you can freeze things.” She went to the supply cabinet against the wall and grabbed her duffel bag from the shelf. “You can deal with this streak guy on your own.” She would find a hoodie and maybe some sunglasses and blend in long enough to get on a bus, somewhere south so she could find someplace to recuperate for a bit before starting part-

  
He chuckled, and her hasty thoughts of plans bled out of her mind. “You know too much. You might as well be family.” He went over to the computer and pulled out a flash drive from his pocket and inserted into the USB port. “Family has to stick together.” He waved her over with his terrible smile. “And besides, I owe you. You saved my sister’s life, and that means I can’t take yours.”

  
She looked over at the computer screen and felt the air escape her body.

  
It was security footage, time stamp put it to eight months earlier, back to when she had just joined Leonard and Lisa, but she didn’t have to look at the time to know when it took place.

  
The footage showed Frost taking a sip of beer from behind the bar they had stopped at to celebrate a successful robbery earlier that day, to Lisa’s insistence of course. The man who she had worked with earlier that day stopped next to her and leaned against the wall. There was no audio to the footage, but Frost knew that he was asking her when was the last time a man had made her feel warm.

  
In the video he lightly touched her shoulder, and she brushed him off, but he did it again. She was visibly angry in the video and shoved him away, and turned her back and proceeded to walk back into the bar. He pulled her back and shoved her up against the wall.

  
In real time Frost looked away, knowing what was going to happen next. He would kiss her, and her disgust at being touched by anyone who wasn’t her fiance would quickly go away as she felt suddenly _better_. She didn’t want to touch him, no not at all. She wanted to absorb his warmth, like how one would breathe after almost drowning.

  
As soon as she changed her actions, from struggling to get away to wanting to consume his warmth and drain him of his life, he would start to fight her off, but she wouldn’t stop. Not until there was no more warmth to consume.

  
A minute later Frost looked back at the video, feeling as ashamed and unclean as she did all those months ago. In the video Leonard walked out of the bar and saw her stand over the body, before then chucking a rock at the camera, and then the visual was nothing but black and white static.

  
In real time Leonard Snart chuckled. “I don’t know your name, but someone’s got to. How many views do you think a video like this would get on YouTube?” She crossed her arms, holding herself together. “I’m betting just enough until someone out there recognizes you, until a warrant for your arrest is issued.”

  
In hindsight she totally saw this coming. As if Leonard Snart would keep a loose end not dealt with.

  
She dropped her duffel bag at her feet, she wasn’t going anywhere. Yet.

  
“What do you want?” The air was getting colder to the point where she could see the wispy fog that was his breath.

  
He grinned and patted her hair, careful not to touch her skin. “Just for everything to stay exactly as it is.”

  
She looked at him in disbelief.

  
“But….” _There it is!_ “I really want you to think about it before you make your choice.”

  
She side eyed him. “What?”

  
He placed his hands on her shoulders and met her eye to eye. “I want you to think that it’s not because I’m blackmailing you, I want you to think about how you belong here.”

  
She swallowed. “Because now I’m a criminal like you?”

  
He grinned and she hated him. “You have potential and I see that. I’ve noticed your darkness, you can’t hide it. Because like me, Lisa, and Mickey, you’re a killer, Frost.” He tilted his head in consideration. “I might even start calling you that, maybe it will give the lackeys one less reason to try to mess with you.”

  
She gritted her teeth. “I’m not a killer. It was an _accident._ ”

  
He didn’t roll his eyes, but she saw that he wanted to. He stepped away from her and removed his hands. “Whatever you want to tell yourself, but I’ve seen that security tape quite a bit since I stole it. And I know you liked it.”

  
Her eyes slid to the ground. That’s why she needed part two, so she wouldn’t want to hurt anyone like that ever again.

  
“OK. You’re mad.” He backed away further. “I’ll leave you here to _cool off_. When I get back then I want your answer.”

* * *

 

 

Leonard killed someone else with his ice gun.

  
Frost wasn’t there, oh no she was at the warehouse trying not to start a snowstorm. But who wasn’t in the warehouse? Leonard _freakin’_ Snart and his sudden manipulative attitude and clingy ways.

  
What Frost did while trying to keep the temperature in the room up and not waste it on an angry fit, was do a little bit of internet research on Central City’s newest guardian angel.

  
People in certain life and death situations finding themselves miles away in the blink of an eye, sightings of random red blurs around town. Criminals about to get away only to turn up in the back of a police cruiser. Those criminals with rumored superpowers turning up dead. That last one was bad for her, but the whole thing was a little interesting, if not completely unbelievable.

  
Caitlin was jealous. Her powers did nothing but destroy and kill, which was what ultimately led her to her role as an accomplice. The Streak had powers that could make him teleport, or move really fast, or something of the sort, and he uses them to stop the bad guys and save the day.

  
Caitlin couldn’t use her powers for good, not when her touch could kill. Not when she couldn’t see her family or friends ever again, not with how she was. One way or another they would get hurt, and they were better off thinking she resided under a small plot of land six feet under. Better them thinking it was her, rather than it actually being them.

  
When her search really didn’t turn up much that could help her, she watched the news. Lo and behold after a few hours of coverage on the most targeted profession ever, a Starling City politician, and why every baddie wants to kill them, she caught the aftermath of Leonard playing with his newest toy.

  
Her anger and bitterness made itself very known in every move and every thought that went through her head. How could she not have seen this _coming_? Of course he had dirt on her, and it was just like him to use it to his advantage.

  
From what she gathered, there was an attempt to steal the diamond that was proving itself to be quite elusive, and then after being spotted by security because who wouldn’t notice the creepy loner wearing a parka indoors, he tried making a move and escaping only to be stopped by the streak guy.

  
Whoever the streak guy was, he probably didn’t think his profession out very well to decide to fight crime in a ridiculously noticeable costume when his signature suggested he didn’t want to be noticed. One thing she had over him was a sense of inconspicuous style, the only good that came out of being around Lisa Snart, getting her hand-me-downs.

  
While witnesses said he fired at multiple people, he only managed to get one of them. She felt a stab of guilt when the camera panned over to a body bag being wheeled out, wondering if she had gone with him, would there be any bodies at all.

  
Leonard Snart needed to be stopped, and the Streak wasn’t doing a good job.

  
But _oh goodie!_ When Leonard came back he brought back the goons. Now Frost was having a _really_ perfect. Freakin’. Day.

  
The three of them stormed through the warehouse, and he was in such a bad mood about losing the diamond that he didn’t even look at her.

  
“We’re going back tonight,” he said.

  
“Back where?” one of the goons asked.

  
“Back to the museum. That diamond isn’t going to steal itself.” The frustration was coming off of him in waves.

  
“Super gun freeze your brain, Snart?” the other goon asked. “Museum’s gonna be crawling with police by now. And the streak.”

  
Leonard held up his cold gun. “This can stop the streak. It hurt him, and I know his real weakness, so we go. Unless you want out.”

  
The two whipped out their guns and one pointed theirs right at his forehead. The other right at her.

  
“Hey! Why are you pointing that at me?” she yelled. If only they knew she was silently encouraging them to pull that trigger, no matter how bad the part of her that sounded like Barry Allen was opposing the violence.

  
The one with his gun on her just shrugged.

“I don’t want you getting any ideas. Point is, we both want out.” the one with the gun on Leonard said. “Alive.”

  
“So you thought ahead and made a plan.” He seemed unimpressed with their plan from the tone of his voice. Meanwhile Frost was calculating how fast she could make a protective ice barrier in case the hired gun got an itchy trigger finger. “Least I taught you something. So what are you waiting for? Shoot me.” She had never heard anyone sound so bored with a gun pressed to their head. “You better put a bullet in my brain right now because if you don’t, if Frost or I ever see either one of you again-,”

  
“You don’t get it, do you? This blur is out there. Central City ain’t your playground anymore.” While backing up quickly with their guns firmly trained onto them, they scurried out of the warehouse.

  
He stroked his cold gun in a way that made Frost want to look the other direction. “Sure it is,” he mumbled.

  
“What now, master?” she asked sarcastically.

  
He grimaced. “Don’t be like that, Frosty. And here I thought we might be able to really bond with one another.”

  
She threw her hands in the air. “I don’t care about that. What I do care about is getting out of town before the streak up and finds us. Or we end up conveniently dead.” A plot was forming in her mind, all she needed was for it to take shape.

  
He didn’t seem concerned at her worries. “I’ve got a plan to get the diamond and to avoid the streak.”

  
She let out a breath to calm herself, she couldn’t give anything away. “OK. Wanna let me in on it, partner?”

  
“Easy. The police are easy to get past and the streak is easy to distract.” he told her with a smug look on his face. “We announce our presence in a crowded area, wait for the streak to show up, and then endanger countless lives for him to save. The coppers will be too busy trying to catch up.”

  
Frost couldn’t find a single thing wrong with his reasoning. They had escaped the police more times than they’d worked jobs, she knew how it was done, and everything she’d learned about the streak supported the statement.

  
That was precisely why she couldn’t let it happen.

  
Endangering people? No. That went against every moral she still had, the very oath she took when she became a doctor. Leonard Snart had taken a lot from her, made her break quite a few promises to herself and if she ever did fully embrace her cold powers and become a monster she would forever blame him, but she wasn’t going to let herself become some sort of mass murderer.

  
Now that she knew his plan, it would be easier for her to wreck it, and let the police deal with him.

  
She nodded. “OK. Let’s do it.”

  
He smiled at her. “Pack your bags, Frost. I know the perfect train station.”

* * *

 

He shot the night guard in the chest with the cold gun.

  
She tried not to look too relieved when the shot mostly missed him and he was still breathing, but luckily Leonard’s attention was on something else.

  
“Was that necessary?” she hissed in outrage. “If you really wanted them out of the way I could’ve made tranq darts.”

  
LIke usual, he ignored her complaint and focused on his object of obsession.

  
“Hi there.” he mumbled to the diamond.

  
She tapped her foot impatiently as he took his time retrieving it. He was looking at it like how she used to look at her college diploma on graduation day. She fiddled with the scarf covering her hair in agitation.

  
They only had a few minutes to get in and out and down to the train station. It still amazed her that after two attempts to steal the diamond by a notorious criminal they only had a few guards that were easy to get past or knock out and a shoddy security system to protect it. If Frost and Leonard wanted to get to Coast City by morning and not spend it in a high speed chase, they needed to get going.

  
“We don’t have time to stick around. We can’t cut it too close.” They triggered the silent alarm on their way in, they had less than a minute to get out. There was no way she could get him arrested there, she had seen him escape tighter situations. The only way for him to be locked away for good was to make it as public as possible with help from a superpowered track star.

  
“Relax. We have plenty of time to get to the station.” He seemed to glow with the diamond in his hand. The job took far longer than anyone had expected. Third time really was the charm.

  
“C’mon,” he said, pocketing the diamond in his parka.

  
A brisk walk from the poorly guarded museum to the station didn’t take too long.

  
A brief glance around the station revealed that the ticket booth workers were paying too much attention to them to just wonder if they were cosplayers.

  
Leonard marched through the station, and Frost followed, taking quick glances out of the corner of her eye for the police.

  
It was quicker than she thought. Leonard shoved her behind the concrete support beam and fired a shot of his cold gun at the cop who she couldn’t see, who then fired a shot in return.

  
Leonard ducked behind the support beam and ushered Frost away from the cops. Now that they were there, the Streak wouldn’t be far behind. She wasn’t paying much attention, but she heard one of the cops yell to the other, “I’m your partner, not your assistant!”.

  
The train Leonard had timed everything for came rushing on the rails, and he made a move for it.

  
No, no no. If he got on that train it would be game over. His plan to screw over the Streak while simultaneously diverting the police would come into effect and she would still be under his thumb.

  
_Where was that damn do-gooder superhero?_

  
In a split second she made a decision, for herself, for Dr. Caitlin Snow.

  
Anger boiled in her. The temperature started dropping. Leonard wasn’t going to get off scot free. Not for every single crime he had committed. Not the ones she had watched.

  
She didn’t have to wait around for someone else to do something for her, when she could just do it herself.

  
She could be free of him, start part two and find herself a desert in South America.

  
Now or never. And she wanted to hurt him _now_.

  
She raised her hand and blasted him with an icicle that grazed his parka before hitting the side of a bench and shattering.

  
“What are you doing?” he yelled at her through gritted teeth.

  
Images flashed through her mind. Barry, hooked up to all those beeping machines. Herself, her hands shaking as she looked at her own face in the mirror. The pictures on her walls cracking from the ice. She had been angry and hurt for a year, and Leonard was about to get the brunt of it.

  
She cackled, laughed like she hadn’t in a long time. And it wasn’t even a real laugh.

  
“They might not know my face, but they know yours!” She shot another blast of ice at him, and he dodged it and landed in roll before aiming his cold gun at her. “I wonder how you’re going to escape when you have to go through the police, the streak, and _me_.”

  
He patted his pocket and grinned at her. “You forget, I still have the flash drive. How much of a kick do you think the deputies at processing are gonna get out of it?”

  
The train was coming, the one they were supposed to jump on. His eyes flashed towards it and another wave of fury went through her. He ran to the moving train, but she wasn’t going to make it that easy.

  
With a grunt of frustration she put all her anger into firing a beam of cold in the way of his path. He slipped and skidded a few feet. She smiled, but not happily. A sadistic part of her was loving the power she found herself having over him. For once he was the mouse and she was the cat.

  
A red blur stole her attention and the streak man grabbed Leonard by his parka. Frost lost her grin. She had waited way too long and some vigilante wannabe wasn’t going to get in her way. He may be needed to keep Leonard from getting away, but she wanted to be the one to really make him bleed.

  
She didn’t need the Streak anymore. Hurting Leonard was _her_ job.

  
Leonard bashed his skull into the man’s head. A distant part of her brain was bringing up treatments for a possible concussion, but it was quickly silenced by the adrenaline and sudden influx of energy. She could gather that she was using up enough energy to drastically lower the station’s temperature.

  
The man in the red costume smacked Leonard, the force he was using quite obviously calculated. The pain for Leonard was fleeting by his standards, but Frost was jealous. That man was nothing, had nothing to do with either of them, and he was taking _her_ chance. She had to make Leonard pay, and retrieve the flash drive. She didn’t want Barry and Cisco to see what she had become.

  
All she wanted was help, and Leonard stole her soul.

  
“ _No!_ If anyone is gonna hurt him, it’s gonna be _me!_ ” She raised her hands, and the man in red yelled out in pain, and she wasted no time sinking her claws into his shoulders and tossing him to the side. Seeing him stumble and roll over her ice, unable to really get a grip on his footing gave her a little more confidence. If she could hurt Central City’s unconfirmed hero, who else could she hurt?

  
“C’mon Frost, are you sure you want to get into this?” Snart taunted. “Are you sure you want to mess with me?”

  
“ _You_ messed with _me_.” He messed with her plans, her hopes of waking up Barry and finding a way to make herself normal again. But Leonard showed her that after everything she had seen and done, she could never go back to normal. She and Barry could never walk into the sunset together.

  
A cloud surrounded her hands, the ice building in her grasp, desperate to find its target. She raised her fists to strike-

  
She was knocked into the ticket booth, her side taking most of the blow. The glass shattered under her weight. Frightened bystanders gasped and moved out of her way as she finally landed to the ground.

  
Her side ached, and she gasped for breath. It took her a moment to stop her vision from blurring. Head trauma? Could be likely but if so a headache would be present. Broken ribs? She flexed her stomach and was only met with a dull ache rather than sharp pains. No broken ribs, just bruising.

  
Glass crunched under her as she moved to get up. That train was moving fast and she needed to catch up. A pretty boy with a gun and badge glanced at her, but she just glared at him and went to the train tracks to see if she could trace their steps.

  
The pretty boy kept looking at her, dropping his gun further and furrowed his brows at her, practically squinting at her intently as if he was trying to read her. Frost paid little attention to his strange reaction to her appearance. She had bigger things to worry about.

  
She ran on the metal tracks, ignoring the ache in her gut where a large bruise was likely forming. If it were anyone else Dr. Snow would’ve given instructions to put ice on it. Frost practically _was_ ice.

  
The train ran off the rails, the screeching of metal on metal tore at her eardrums, yet she resisted the urge to cover her ears. The train started rolling over.

  
Red streaks of light covered and shot out of the rolling train and in the blink of an eye people were left unharmed by the side of the rails, albeit disoriented.

  
What a show off.

  
In the distance she saw the Streak stop and land on the ground, right where Leonard Snart was waiting with his cold gun.

  
Leonard shot him, the red suited man collapsing to the ground.

  
Frost was angry, for many reasons, but at that moment she hated that he was using cold as his weapon. How could she stand by and watch him take her ice abilities too?

  
The Streak wasn’t really helping either. She had expected someone more organized and capable from how he was able to foil Leonard’s heist twice, but from where she was standing he was borderline incompetent and sloppy with his work. The cops weren’t too far behind her, but she needed to get the flash drive and stall for time.

  
She made it to the fight, walking towards them, trying to conserve a little bit of energy. The crackling fire of the train overpowered whatever Leonard and the superhero could’ve been talking about. She went around a large piece of flaming debris, the heat from the fire energizing her. She came out from behind the debris just in time to hear Leonard gloat.

  
“You forced me to up my game. Not just with this gun, but with how I think about the job. Before getting my hands on this gun I had to get creative with a certain _cold_ woman. It’s been educational.”

  
Without even thinking about it, her hands turned themselves into icy claws and shot ice onto his back.

  
“ _Creative?_ ”

  
She barely had time to savor Leonard’s almost stunned face before moving over to where he was laying on the ground. She grabbed him by his coat with the hand that was shaking in anger.

Frost raised her other hand, letting her fury form ice on her fingertips.

  
“Let it go, Elsa.”

  
She clenched her eyes shut. Oh God, she had actually been about to do it. She had been about to kill someone. Her icy hand didn’t give her a rush, or an adrenaline kick or a feeling of _yes_ at that moment.

  
All she felt was shame.

  
“Stop right there or he’ll shoot!” the Streak said from his position on the ground, trying to gain some kind of authority in a situation where he was arguably the most vulnerable person there.

  
Snart sneered from his position at her feet. “Don’t bother with this one, Streak. She may act all high and mighty, but I know her. You’re a killer in the making, Frost.”

  
The anger welled up in her again, her fist clenching as she made a small move to hit him across his face and let her icy pinpricks claim his cheeks. But no. That wasn’t her, she wasn’t a killer and he will never make her one.

  
She took a quick look at the Streak to gauge how much trouble he could cause her. He was weak, on the ground ice covering his middle. Not too much of a hassle then. What about the man behind her with the gun? Did the police finally show up?

  
It wasn’t the police.

  
Cisco Roman pointed a large glowing object similar to Leonard’s at her head. Cisco, her very best friend in the whole world. Cisco, who was the first person to ever feel like family to her. Cisco, who she hadn’t seen in a year.

  
“Caitlin?”

  
He lowered his gun at her, his arms slightly suddenly wracked with tremors. His mouth was slightly agape as he took in her features. Her white hair, her pale skin, her blue eyes. All things that didn’t make up _his_ very best friend in the whole world.

  
Her hand twitched and gave off a spark of ice that shattered on the ground.

  
She wasn’t his best friend, hadn’t been in a year.

  
She lowered her head, and turned her body around to face Leonard. “I don’t know who you’re talking about, _sweetheart_. You heard the man. _I’m_ _Killer Frost_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember to annoy me on tumblr @snowonbarry


	7. I Need You To Soothe My Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Years to all my readers! To help usher in the new year, I have finally finished the 7th chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! If you guys follow me on tumblr snowonbarry or have read the prequel one shot series We Simmer than you know that in recent months my mental health has taken a bad turn and I had to take some time off to get myself in order. But now here is the latest chapter and I am so thankful that I still have people reviewing and following this! This one if for you, Snowbarry family!
> 
> And yes, 3x07 did fuel my inspiration for this chapter and that episode is the gift that keeps on giving
> 
> Now I must thank my amazing reviewers: OutlawQueenAsLove, VVSIGNOFTHECROSS, Alkeni, and acciolove!

There were too many things to focus on that Barry’s fast reflexes felt slow.

He had just saved dozens of people from being crushed to death in a runaway train. Snart had shot him with his cold gun, and the painful effects were still wreaking havoc to his senses. Cisco and Felicity had shown up out of nowhere with some sort of weapon that looked like a bad movie prop but none of those things were important. At least compared to the one big thing that had him convinced he’d been knocked down harder than he thought.

“Caitlin?” Cisco mumbled.

The woman’s mouth slowly fell open as she appeared to have trouble drawing in air.

Her hand twitched and a small drop of ice came off of her fingertips before falling to the rough ground.

In an instant her entire being hardened up. Her mouth slammed shut, her widened eyes slanted into something darker, _colder_.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about, _sweetheart_. You heard the man. _I’m Killer Frost_.”

Snart eyed the interaction with interest. “I take it you know each other.”

Her grip tightened on him, and a small voice in the back of his head worried what he was about to see her do. Barry was aware of his surroundings in painful detail, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Not off the slope of her nose or the almost delicate arch of her neck, desperately trying to find concrete proof that he wasn’t just seeing things and that it was _actually her._

“We don’t. He’s got me confused with someone else.”

She slipped a hand into his parka and pulled out a small object that she then tucked into her jacket pocket. She glared at him, before straightening up and removing herself from his personal space. Barry released a sigh of relief.

Snart lifted his gun, and aimed it at Barry. Cisco reacted with a stern look, pointing his heavy device at the career criminal.

“Not so fast.” Both Snart and the woman who Barry wondered was really Caitlin Snow looked confused at the device, but didn’t say anything. “This is a prototype cold gun. Four times the size, four times the power.” The woman Barry couldn’t stop comparing to his old memories tensed, her body looking like she was ready to make a run for it.

“I was wondering who you were talking to,” Snart said, looking between Barry and Cisco.

“Hey! Unless you wanna taste your own medicine then I’d back the hell up.”

“Your hands are shaking,” Snart said smoothly. “You’ve never killed anyone.”

“There is a first time for everything, _Captain Cold_ ,” Cisco replied. Cisco was putting on an act, being brave, for sure. Because Barry needed Cisco right now to have his head on straight since the steady earth underneath Barry felt like air.

Snart looked delighted, almost amused at the name Cisco gave him. “Killer Frost and Captain Cold? A bit on the nose, don’t you think?” The person who was starting to look less and less like

Caitlin Snow flinched.

Cisco kept his straight face. “I will shoot you.”

Snart looked at Cisco, then to Barry who was still on the ground, the ice just starting to turn to water. He left his gaze on _her_ , almost as if he was taking in information.

“You win, kid.” He pulled back his gun, no longer aiming it at Barry. “We’ll see you around.” He took a step back, his gloved hand reaching for her sleeve.

“No.” Cisco kept his aim on Snart, but spared a glance at the woman in question. “Just you, she stays.”

Snart raised an eyebrow at Cisco. “Whatever floats your boat.” He smirked at her. “Good luck dealing with this, Frosty.” Snart lowered his gun and proceeded to walk away.

The snow and ice had melted considerably, but he was still trapped to the ground by a band of ice. Even if there was nothing there, Barry wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to get up.

He hadn’t been able to get a good luck at her face, just her familiar looking profile and the back of her head. It couldn’t really be her, right? After everyone and everything confirmed she was dead, there was no way this could be anything other than a mistake.

“Hey! Leave the diamond,” Cisco yelled.

“Don’t push your luck.”

Felicity, who Barry had just remembered was behind Cisco trying to lug around the heavy looking contraption connected to Cisco’s gun, stepped forward to place a hand on Cisco’s shoulder, not taking her eyes off of ‘Frosty’.

“Couldn’t shoot him even if I wanted to. This is actually the STAR Labs vacuum cleaner.” Cisco’s usual after-meta-takedown attitude was nowhere to be found.

Felicity kept her eyes to the ground, wanting to give the three of them a semblance of privacy, as she went over to Barry. The ice around him gave way when he sat up to get a closer look at _her_.

She couldn’t stop looking to where Snart had gone off to, her back the only part of he could see. “You shouldn’t have said my name.” Her voice was unlike anything Barry has heard before. It was like two people were talking at once, yet her voice flowed like sugar water.

Cisco moved himself into her line of sight and from Barry’s vantage point Cisco’s eyes were suspiciously shiny.

“Is it really _you_?” he whispered.

Barry got up, brushing away Felicity’s hands.

 _She_ looked up, and a light breeze blew her hair away from her face. A slight tremor made her fingers twitch, but no icy fogs surrounded her hand. “You shouldn’t have said that name in front of him.”

Cisco flinched as if she’d hit him, but he couldn’t contain his hopeful look.

“I have to kill him now.”

She marched off.

“Wait what?”

The first two months Barry had spent out of his coma he had been in a haze of remembering every good time with Cait. Every kiss and lunch date and pillow fight and drunken karaoke session he could remember, and even a few that he might’ve made up when just memories wasn’t good enough. The only reprieve he got was when he was running, nothing like watching everything in a slow motion blur to keep him from getting lost in his head.

“Caitlin!” Cisco yelled.

She didn’t stop.

“Oh my god is she really going to…?” Felicity trailed off, but Barry didn’t spare her a thought.

Barry needed to get in front of her, he needed to see her face for himself. He needed to see _her_.

She stepped back when Barry appeared before her.

An icicle formed in her hand and she raised it at him. “This doesn’t concern you. It’s best if you get out of my way.”

She threw an ice shard at him, but her aim was off and missed him even without his speed.

“Caitlin, stop!” Cisco yelled.

She stopped her attack on Barry and turned back to where Cisco was coming from. “If you care about yourself, Barry, or your family you will let me go right now and I will take care of him.”

Barry stopped moving towards her, unmoving as if she had hit him with another one of her ice blasts. “Barry’s awake. He’s _fine_ , you can see him right now!”

She shook her head. “And what if I don’t want to see him?”

Cisco met eyes with Barry over her shoulder. “Sucks for you then.”

Cisco nodded, indicating for her to look over her shoulder. She turned around.

Barry lifted his mask off his head and let it hang over his back. Her crystal blue eyes took in his appearance, flitting over his face, like he was doing to hers.

_Caitlin_

Now everything was painfully clear, the little gasp she took in when she saw who was behind the mask. Time flowed silently between them. Especially when they took in every change between the person they used to know better than the elements on the periodic table.

In his craziest dreams he had imagined what would happen if the universe had miraculously granted him an extra minute with Caitlin, the things he would say, the things he wanted to do. But in that moment, only a single word could force its way out of his mouth.

“Hi.”

“So _you’re_ the Streak.” Her voice went up an octave and her eyes got less icy and more watery. The ice queen looked like she was going to start melting. “I’m not that surprised.”

He had gotten his extra minute.

“So. How’ve you been?” He attempted to smile at her, trying to coax some sort of levity from her, just to see her smile, even though she couldn’t be farther from the girl in his memories.

She didn’t smile. Her ice hardened.

“Cold.”

She might as well have stabbed him for the instant sobering effect it had on him.

Caitlin Snow was the warmest person he had ever known. The woman in front of him shot ice from her hands. The one who fought him not even ten minutes earlier.

“Why didn’t you want Cisco to say your name?” The words tumbled out of him before he could think about it, but asking her questions was better than dwelling on her answer.

She looked over to Cisco, who looked so torn and so confused, before looking over Cisco’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t understand. And I’m done talking.” She turned her back to them and started walking in the opposite direction Snart had gone.

Cisco grabbed her by the arm. “Not so fast, young lady. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do. You’re coming with us.”

She wrenched her arm out of his grip. “I’m not going anywhere. Snart needs to die.”

He wanted to vomit.

Something was wrong with her, this wasn’t her at all. He couldn’t just let her leave.

He looked at Cisco. “STAR Labs?” Cisco nodded his agreement, seeing where Barry’s thoughts had taken him.

Unfortunately she seemed to understand too.

He put his mask over himself. But before he could do anything her icy hands held the exposed part of his face, and for a moment it was almost tender, until he felt the sensation of having his heat ripped from him. He cried out in pain.

From what he could gather, she was pissed.

His face felt like he’d dipped it in liquid nitrogen, but he tackled her to the ground, careful to shield her from the hard ground by placing himself under her.

She pushed herself off of him and stood over him, and placed her boot on his stomach, keeping him there.

“If you know what’s best, you’ll let me leave and forget you ever saw me,” she growled.

Even threatening, she looked mesmerizing. The low lighting hid some of her features, letting his memory fill in the rest.

“Caitlin-,”

She grunted and then fell forward. Cisco caught her around the waist and set her on the ground beside the vacuum cleaner that he had knocked her out with.

Cisco ran a hand over his face and Barry almost saw Cisco age faster than he could run. “Let’s get her in the van. We’ll put her in the pipeline until we know what to do with her.”

Barry got up and then stood over her. Her face was peaceful and her white blond hair made her look angelic, but her skin looked like a corpse.

Almost as if she were dead.

He bent down, preparing himself to pick her up. He skimmed a hand over her jacket sleeve and longed to take off his gloves to feel her skin for himself. To feel _her_. To keep himself grounded in the reality where Caitlin Snow was alive.

“Am I gonna wake up from this?” he asked, voicing his hesitance to believe that she was _real_ and _with him._

Cisco took in how different his best friend was, and he shivered in the warm air. “I hope so,” Cisco muttered.

When Barry picked her up, it wasn’t like it used to be. She didn’t giggle, she didn’t smile or kiss him when she did.

She was unconscious and he was moving her to a prison.

He shuddered and tried to remember that he was doing the right thing, but it didn’t ease the bad feeling in his stomach.

* * *

 

Locking the door and effectively trapping Caitlin was the worst thing he had ever done.

Laying her cold motionless body on the floor and then leaving her in there all by herself went against all his instincts. It also went against the vows that Barry used to plan to say, but never got a chance to.

He unclenched his hands and spread his fingers as far apart as they could go, remembering what he had done with them earlier.

He had done the one thing he swore to never do and that was to hurt Caitlin Snow. Albeit when he made that internal promise he had meant that he would never break her heart, and didn’t think that he would ever throw her through a pane of glass or knock her to the ground to stop her from killing someone.

He was disgusted with himself. He hadn’t cared about her safety or well being, he saw an obstacle in between him and Snart. And now the woman he loves might be in pain. And it was because of his reckless behavior.

How could they stray so far from the people they used to be?

“You were right,” Cisco said. “There was a big conspiracy after all.”

Barry clenched his fist. “Someone knew she was alive.”

“I think we need to have a chat with Dr. Wells.”

Barry clenched his fist. “You think it was him?”

Cisco’s eyes hardened, and Barry knew he was reliving every bad thing that happened since the particle accelerator. “It’s a start.”

Barry wanted to flash to where he knew Wells was, but he knew that Cisco wouldn’t be happy with that nor did Barry think he would be able to control his anger without Cisco.

They found Wells in the cortex watching the live video feed of the pipeline. He had been watching them the whole time and knew that they were coming to see him. He turned his wheelchair around to face them.

“I see Dr. Snow is back.”

Every doubt that Barry had of Wells’ guilt was obliterated. His temple throbbed in anger.

“You knew!” he yelled. He took a step towards him. He wanted to hit something, but he needed answers first so he kept back.

“How could you!” Cisco yelled. “You were at her funeral. You told Barry she was dead. This whole time you could’ve told us _something!_ ”

“She told me not to.”

“You saw her,” Barry stated. None of it made sense, there was absolutely nothing that had made sense since he had woken up.

He wanted to be happy. She was one corridor away with a beating heart. But he couldn’t be happy because her beating heart was frozen over. She was close enough to _touch_ , but not to really _feel_.

“I did see her. A few days after the accident, she came to my house. I was on a lot of painkillers, but she wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help her.” Dr. Wells looked from the two of them back to the computer screen that showed the closed door to Caitlin’s cell.

Cisco swallowed while Barry’s hopes started to die. “There’s really nothing, huh?” Cisco’s tone was matter of fact, but anyone could tell he too started to feel what Barry was feeling.

Wells shook his head.

Barry gripped the desk and held himself up by it.

Wells turned back to the computer. “I was hoping to talk to you boys about getting Snart since he managed to evade the cops, but I see that you two need some time.” He started to wheel

himself to wherever Dr. Wells wheeled himself to. “Reconvene tomorrow?”

Barry grabbed the armrest of his wheelchair. “We’re not giving up on her.” Barry and Cisco had a lot of words to say to him, but the shock they were still in only allowed for a few words to come out.

Dr. Wells’ smile was more of a grimace. “Of course, Mr. Allen.”

Cisco collapsed into the desk chair once Wells was gone.

A realization struck Barry, and a whole new sense of dread entered him. “Do we tell anyone about this?”

Cisco’s eyes were wet and his lip trembled. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“We can’t just keep her locked up down there forever,” Barry said. He looked down at the security footage at her her cell door, and wished that they hadn’t added a thick steel wall to their makeshift meta prison. He just wanted to see her again, he wanted reassurance that it was all real.

“How did we get here?” Cisco mumbled. “How did we get from you and Caitlin arguing about whether to elope or not to how long are we gonna keep her locked in the pipeline?”

Barry shuddered. “I don’t know. I just woke up and everything was different.”

Of course everything was different, the life he currently led was a bizarre twist to how his life used to be, and while he was making a difference and achieving in ways he never could’ve before, it didn’t feel like anything at all when he went back to his apartment. It felt even worse then, not knowing what Caitlin had been through the past year.

There was no question that he wasn’t leaving STAR Labs. He wasn’t going to leave her when he just found her again. Barry didn’t care what she called herself nowadays, she was still Cait.

Using his speed he changed out of his red costume and into his everyday clothes. “I’m gonna go down there and wait until she wakes up.”

Cisco snapped out of his mood to look at Barry with alarm. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Not at all.”

* * *

 

She was awake by the time he opened the steel door.

She had been leaning against the wall of her cell, but her icy white eyes flickered to his and then she moved to the plexiglass door.

“Well, at least the Streak didn’t forget about me,” she said with a fake looking smirk.

He had no idea what he was doing, where to go from there, or how to get her to open up. He didn’t know a thing about the person she had become, _Killer Frost._ He didn’t anything about the places she’d been or things she had seen or even done. He might as well have been in front of a stranger. He could only think of doing the only thing that natural to him.

He starting talking to Cait.

“Actually I’m thinking of going by ‘The Flash’.” She tilted her head at him, her smirk fading into an unimpressed grimace. “‘The Streak’ makes me sound like a frat boy during initiation.”

“The Flash?” She lifted eyebrow and he nodded his confirmation. “Did you come up with it yourself?”

“Oh come on, Cait. I know you didn’t come up with Killer Frost on your own. It sounds too flashy for you.” Caitlin’s tastes had always simple, it was one of things that drew him to her in the first place.

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped.

He dropped his casual facade. “But that’s your name, right? Dr. Caitlin Snow?”

She stalked to the door of her prison and got as close to it as she could without touching it. “Is this an interrogation? Because I’ve been interrogated better than this.” Her hooded eyes rolled as if she was annoyed, but Barry still knew her enough to catch the fear that caused her to shift her position.

“You’re not being interrogated,” he said.

She pressed her hands against the glass and frost formed under her palms before the emergency heater kicked on. It was a random bit of technology Cisco thought to put into the cells, but

Barry was grateful for it as the frost melted.

“You could’ve fooled me.” she mumbled bitterly. “I’m in a prison and you’re asking me questions.”

Something she had said finally came to his attention. “When were you interrogated?”

She cocked her head. “Leonard likes to make sure he has the _right kind_ of people with him.” She sneered and looked to the side.

He took in her expression and felt disgust. What had Snart done to her?

She had no visible injuries neither did she seem in pain, but that didn’t stop him from being very scared for her.

“So where’s your little friend? I didn’t recognize her.” Her pale hands slid against the glass.

Her tone was nonchalant, but Barry wondered if that was an act. “Felicity Smoak left us at the train station. Do you remember me talking about her when I went to Starling City last year?”

She smiled with no teeth and no warmth. “You waste a lot of time on dead ends.”

He barely stopped himself from flinching.

“What happened to you?” He shook his head and pushed back his memories. “How did you get like this?”

She glared at him. “Does it matter?”

“It does to me.”

She dropped her eyes from him and Barry recognized that gesture so much it ached.

But then he was hit with a sudden realization.

For years Caitlin was alone in some empty house while her mother stayed late burying herself in work. In everything but name Caitlin Snow was an orphan. It was something Barry had realized when he invited her out for drinks a month after they first met. It was a role Caitlin Snow had shed off once she was constantly surrounded by friends, family, and her own personal achievements.

The dead don’t have friends, family, or personal achievements.

She crossed her arms and stepped back. “Unless you’re letting me go, I don’t care what you have to say.”

His mouth dried up and he stood still in his shock.

She raised an eyebrow, challenging him to do anything. But he couldn’t. She wasn’t ready to talk, _to share_ , and he had no plan. He had no idea how to fix any of this. How to make her realize that she didn’t have to be an orphan anymore.

He started to walk away. “This isn’t over, Cait. We’re not gonna give up on you.” He pressed the button that closed the steel door, and turned around before he could watch her slowly fade from his view.

He rubbed a hand through his hair, trying to think of anything that could work, and not coming up with anything.

His breathing came hard and fast. He leaned against the wall to hold himself up and waited out the black dots obscuring his vision.

The feeling went as soon as it had come and when he had regained his vision he was alone in a hallway.

The need to run was gripping him and wouldn’t let him go. The pull towards Caitlin Snow was the same force that repelled him from Killer Frost, and all his instincts were telling him to _get away._

So he did.

* * *

 

Barry didn’t think about going to Joe’s house until he was already opening the front door and walking inside.

It was so late the sun was starting to come up and distantly Barry remembered that he had to go to work in a few hours.

He went to Joe’s liquor cabinet and pulled out the cheap whiskey, and collapsed on the living room couch with it.

Barry took a big gulp of the burning liquid, and made a face as it slid down. He waited for the lightheaded feeling to hit him, but it didn’t. He frowned.

Barry was a lightweight, for the most part. Caitlin was always the drinker out of the two of them since that first not-a-date they shared and Barry and Cisco had to stay sober to keep her from doing anything crazy like spontaneous drunken karaoke. He never really had the opportunity to gain a tolerance around her unless they had a quiet night in.

His head dropped on the cushion behind him once he discovered his newest benefit of his super speed. Constant sobriety.

“Barry?” Joe came downstairs in his pajamas and a baseball bat in his hand. “I was hoping it was you and not some damn hooligan.” He smirked at Barry, hoping for a reaction.

Barry lifted the bottle and frowned at Joe. “I can’t get drunk.”

Joe zeroed in on the bottle and his fatherly concern took over. “And why is that on your list of priorities, son?”

Barry felt guilty about the bomb he was about to drop, but Joe looked after Caitlin like he had looked after Barry and Joe had to know.

“Caitlin’s alive.”

Joe leaned against the couch. “Are you sure?”

A brief feeling of anger made him clench his hand around the bottle, but it passed. “I’m sure that the metahuman I have locked in the pipeline at STAR Labs is Caitlin.” He wanted to take a drink, but he didn’t want to waste Joe’s liquor.

“Oh my God.” He squeezed his eyes shut before looking Barry over. “She’s a meta?”

Barry nodded. “A metahuman that can throw ice from her hands.” He placed the bottle on the coffee table. “She goes by Killer Frost now.”

Joe took a seat next to Barry. “She was the meta working with Snart?” He shook his head in disbelief, not needing Barry’s confirmation. “ _Caitlin_ working with someone like _Snart_? This can’t be real.”

Barry shrugged. “I don’t know how that happened either. She won’t say anything.”

“Are you OK?” Joe asked.

Barry teared up. “I don’t know.” He rubbed his arm over his eyes. “Until last night I would ask myself what I would do for just _one more minute with her_. What I would give.”

Joe placed his hand on Barry’s shoulder. “It’s OK to wish that she was actually dead, ya know-,”

“What?” Barry looked at Joe incredulously. “No, no not at all.” He swallowed. “I’m thrilled she’s back. But I always asked what I could do, what I could give up.” Barry guiltily stared at the unlit fireplace, thinking of the newest metahuman in the pipeline. “I never asked myself what _Caitlin_ would have to give up.”

He was happy yet horrified that she was back. Happy that the love of his life wasn’t gone like he thought, but horrified that she had suffered and still was. In his weakest moments where he bargained with the universe, he never wanted anyone but himself to pay any price.

Joe sighed. “The universe doesn’t revolve around you, Barry. You didn’t turn her into a meta. You didn’t make her team up with Snart.”

Barry’s head dropped into his hands, her un-Caitlin-like behavior running on repeat and in his mind.

“You’re not going to work today.” Barry lifted his head to protest. “Don’t argue me on this, you’re a mess right now and you need a day off to think about what you need to do next.”

Barry didn’t argue when Joe took the bottle and sent Barry off to his childhood bedroom with a stern look.

Exhaustion pulled at him, and he drowned himself in it as slept in his old bed while still wearing his sneakers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized I make Barry cry in every chapter

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm not sure if I want to continue this, but if I can get enough support for it and possibly some people throwing their ideas on where to take the story, it would definitely motivate me


End file.
